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amerfcan CommontDealti^g 



WISCONSIN 



aimetican CommontDealtl)j0f 



WISCONSIN 

THE AMERICANIZATION OF A FRENCH 
SETTLEMENT 



BY 



REUBEN GOLD THWAITES 




BOSTON AND NEW YORK 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

(Cbe 0iVier?i£ie ][5re?? €ambrib0e 

1908 



i 



1 1" 



f 



'V- 0' \ 



C K 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two CoDies Received 

NOV 27 1908 

COPY i. J 



COPYRIGHT, I90S, BY REUBEN .GOLD THWAITES 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published November igo8 



PREFACE 

The history of Wisconsin concerns itself with 
three political regimes — those of New France, 
Great Britain, and the United States. Its civiliza- 
tion, however, is of the first and third, for the 
influence of the second was negligible. When, in 
1816, American troops first took possession of Green 
Bay and Prairie du Chien, the country between 
Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River was still 
French to the core. Indeed, still another decade was 
to pass before the Americanizing process began to 
show results. These came, not by transforming the 
character or habits of our mild-mannered and non- 
progressive hahitans and voyageurs, who remained 
quite unchanged through full two centuries of resi- 
dence in Wisconsin, but by means of the influx of 
New Yorkers and New Englanders, who gradually 
crowded them to the wall. It was nearly twenty 
years after American occupation began, before the 
fur-trade, now managed by Americans but almost 
wholly manned by French, ceased to be Wiscon- 
sin's dominating industry. 

So far as it differs materially from that of its 
neighbors, the story of Wisconsin is that of the 
Americanization of a French settlement, — or 



vi PREFACE 

rather of a cordon of widely scattered although 
closely related French fur-trade outposts. Long 
after the greater part of the Old Northwest had 
become a vigorous American community, this far 
northwestern corner, with a history all its own, 
was practically a foreign land. 

During the twelve years of territorial experience 
(1836-48), the element of growth in Wisconsin was 
distinctly American. But immediately upon enter- 
ins: the Union, the state became a centre of attrac- 
tion for German immigrants, and was for a time 
perhaps better known for its Teutonic than for its 
native-born population. Norwegians, Poles, Swiss, 
and other European peoples likewise found in 
Wisconsin those climatic, industrial, and political 
conditions favorable to their development. The 
result was that by 1890 Wisconsin was credited 
with a larger variety of foreign-born folk than 
could be found in any other American common- 
wealth, save perhaps Pennsylvania. In the Ameri- 
canization of these people, Wisconsin throughout 
her statehood career has been actively engaged. 
That this task has been successfully performed is 
evident to any one familiar with her record. For- 
tunately, in becoming Americans European im- 
migrants brought from Old- World experiences 
and culture much that was of use to the life of 
the young state. The results show themselves in 
the conservative tendencies of Wisconsin political 
thought, in the frank welcome here given to mod- 



PREFACE vii 

ern ideas, in the generous sustenance awarded to 
every form of popular and higher education, in 
evidences of a civic patriotism that must work still 
larger triumphs for the commonwealth. 

Space within the volume has been devoted to the 
consideration of these matters rather than to a 
marshaling of annals, although I hope that none 
of the essentials of the state's history have been 
neglected. As for errors of fact or of judgment, no 
historical work ever has been or will be free from 
them; history is a growing science, ever subject 
to new interpretations as fresh material comes to 
light, or points of view differ. It will be noticed 
that the present treatment of the French and much 
of the British regime in Wisconsin differs mate- 
rially from previous historical writing on this sub- 
ject ; indeed, it must frankly be admitted that 
there are herein many statements varying from 
what I have myself asserted in earlier writings. 
But within the past few years the discovery and 
publication of documentary material by the Wis- 
consin Historical Society has made necessary an 
entirely new view of that period, and this volume 
has thereby been the gainer. The " deepest deep " 
has, doubtless, not yet been sounded, hence to-day's 
opinions may still need to be corrected. It would 
be strange, indeed, were this not so. 

In the preparation of the book, I have been 
privileged to receive aid of varying sort from sev- 



viii PREFACE 

eral persons, some of whom have even done me the 
service of reading the manuscript in whole or in 
part. Miss Deborah B. Martin, one of the authors 
of that admirable local history, " Historic Green 
Bay," has kindly examined those portions having 
reference to that ancient town, and much is owing 
to her fruitful suggestions. President William 
Ward Wight, of the Wisconsin Historical Society, 
did for me a similar favor in the matter of Eleazer 
Williams, the " lost Dauphin." Dr. Louise P. Kel- 
logg, my editorial assistant on the staff of the 
Wisconsin Historical Library, has been especially 
helpful in research cooperation, particularly in the 
French and British regimes. I have, in occasional 
footnotes, acknowledged aid from other sources ; 
but owing to the popular nature of the work have not 
sought to fortify every statement by citations of 
authorities. 

R. G. T. 

Wisconsin Historical Library, 
Madison, October, 1908. 



CONTENTS 

I. The Coming of Nicolet 1 

II. French Explorers and Missionaries . . 34 

III. French Exploitation 62 

IV. The Fox Wars and the Fall of New France 85 
V. Under the British Flag .... 102 

VI. From the Peace of Paris to Jay's Treaty . 142 

VII. British Influence Continued . . . 161 

VIII. American Domination Established . . . 179 

IX. Lead-Mining and Indian Wars . . . 199 

X. Establishment of Wisconsin Territory . 229 

XI. Territorial Pioneers and Pioneering . 246 

XII. Territorial Affairs 270 

XIII. Economic Experiences 288 

XIV. " Politics " and National Relations . . 305 
XV. The War Cloud 326 

XVI. News from the Front 342 

XVII. Incidents of Economic Development . 371 

XVIII. Some Notable Contests 400 

XIX. Wisconsin To-day 417 

Index 433 



wiscoKSiisr 



CHAPTER I 

THE COMING OF NICOLET 

In the year made memorable in Jamestown an- 
nals through association with the legend of Captain 
John Smith's rescue by the romantic Pocahontas, 
twelve and a half years before the Pilgrims landed 
on Plymouth Rock, Samuel de Champlain, navi- 
gator, explorer, and statesman, reared on the gray 
cliff of Quebec (July, 1608) the stronghold destined 
to become the capital of New France. 

As early as 1498 Devonshire men, " coming out 
of Bristow [Bristol]," had caught fish and bartered 
with savages in the fiords of Newfoundland, being 
soon joined in this profitable undertaking by Span- 
ish Basques, Portuguese, and Normans and Bretons. 
Throughout the sixteenth century the polyglot fish- 
ing village of St. John's was well known as a port of 
call for maritime adventurers into the western seas, 
who obtained there water, provisions, and recruits ; 
and later the pioneers of Virginia, New France, 
and New England not infrequently resorted thither 
for succor of various kinds. 



2 WISCONSIN 

In 1604 a trading and planting company, under 
grant from Henry IV of France, founded New 
France on the mainland of the continent, their 
initial choice for a site being Port Royal, near the 
present beautiful little town of Annapolis Royal, 
in Nova Scotia. Their first winter, however, was 
miserably spent upon the rocky islet of St. Croix, 
in Passamaquoddy Bay, on the boundary between 
Maine and New Brunswick. The river St. Law- 
rence had in 1534 been ascended as far as the 
island of Montreal by the French explorer, Jacques 
Cartier, and a similar expedition had been made 
by Champlain in 1603. Port Royal had proved too 
easily accessible to roving English corsairs, jealous 
of this foreign intrusion upon a domain claimed by 
their own sovereign, and its facilities for trade with 
the aborigines were found to be meagre. It was, 
therefore, determined to remove the capital of the 
western possessions of the French king to a stronger 
position. Champlain, now appointed governor of 
New France, wisely selected the easily defensible 
rock of Quebec, which lay far from the path of the 
meddlesome English. It was so situated, also, as to 
command an apparently unlimited native traffic, 
and thence might easily be dispatched exploring 
and military expeditions into the far interior. 

The motives that impelled the planting of New 
France remained to the end its chief characteristics : 
love of territorial conquest, that which in the politi- 
cal jargon of our day we dub " imperialism;" the 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 3 

missionary zeal of the Catholic Church, eager at any 
hazard of martyrdom to gather within her fold the 
heathen savages of the New World ; the spirit of 
commercial enterprise, finding in the fur-trade with 
North American natives a field at first rich in 
profits, but in time becoming a gambling venture, 
beset by enormous risks j and the generous yearn- 
ing of the French people for adventure in strange 
lands, in a period when the area of the known 
world was being rapidly enlarged by the explora- 
tions of Europeans, and popular imagination was 
readily kindled by travelers' tales. 

Such were the dominating passions of the enter- 
prise. Subsidiary to these were the hopes of pro- 
spectors, who thought in this vast wilderness to 
discover mines of metals and precious stones ; the 
ambition of army and naval officers, who in the 
stirring colonial arena sought recognition and rapid 
promotion ; and the cupidity of officials in every 
branch of service, military and civil, who, in an age 
far more corrupt than our own, too often deemed 
public office, particularly in over-sea colonies, but 
an opportunity for private peculation. 

In Champlain's day, — indeed, for nearly a cen- 
tury after he had planted Quebec, — Europeans had 
small notion of the enormous width of the North 
American continent. Not until Vitus Bering*s ex- 
ploit in 1741 were they quite certain that it was a 
continent, and not an outlying portion of Asia. In 
their many sorry adventures, the Spanish followers 



4 WISCONSIN 

of Columbus were ever seeking an American trans- 
continental waterway connecting the Atlantic and 
the Pacific. The early Virginians fancied that, once 
successfully surmounting the Appalachian moun- 
tain wall by way of the James, the Potomac, or the 
Koanoke, they might reach the headsprings of 
streams flowing directly into the Pacific. Hendrik 
Pludson at first thought that he had found the way 
through, in Hudson River ; he was still more confi- 
dent when later he discovered Hudson Strait and 
Bay. Throughout nearly two and a half centuries 
of effort, European navigators one by one exhausted 
the possibilities of North American inlets opening 
into both oceans ; the quest for what came to be 
known as the Northwest Passage was thus gradu- 
ally moved farther and farther up the map, until at 
last that mythic waterway, that should shorten the 
sea route between Europe and Asia, was consigned 
to the impenetrable Arctic. 

This prevalent misconception of the width of 
North America, the lingering notion that it was a 
part of Asia, and the theory that a waterway would 
yet be found that directly connected the two 
oceans, were three basic facts in the story of the 
discovery of Wisconsin. Perhaps equally signifi- 
cant was the circumstance that the sources of rivers 
connected with the several divergent drainage sys- 
tems of the continent in numerous places here 
closely approach each other, making it possible for 
primitive travelers to proceed from one system to 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 5 

another, and thus readily traverse the greater part 
of the country. We shall have abundant opportun- 
ity to observe wherein these factors shaped the 
early history of Wisconsin ; indeed, they profoundly 
affected the course of exploration throughout al- 
most the entire continental interior. 

We have seen that in choosing Quebec as the 
capital of New France, Champlain purposely 
planted himself well within the continent, upon a 
great east-and-west drainage trough whose afflu- 
ents in lake and river were to the adventurous 
people of New France destined to prove far-stretch- 
ing highways. Their imagination was easily fired 
by the prospect of thereby penetrating an immense 
area of forested wilderness peopled with strange 
tribes of wild men. 

At the head of this trough of the St. Lawrence 
valley is another low area, extending transversely 
north and south, practically between the Arctic 
Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, with the Missis- 
sippi River flowing through the greater part of its 
enormous length. Now the basin of the Mississippi 
is separated from that of the St. Lawrence by only 
a low and narrow watershed running parallel to 
the Great Lakes. Flowing into these lakes are 
many short rivers, easily ascended by the light In- 
dian canoes, which the whites soon learned to con- 
struct and operate quite as skillfully as the abo- 
rigines. Portage paths, varying in length from one 
mile to ten, and seldom difficult of passage, lead 



6 WISCONSIN 

from these waterways over the height of land to 
other, and for the most part leisurely, streams 
pouring into larger rivers that in their turn empty 
directly or indirectly into the Mississippi. While 
possible portages are numerous along this water- 
shed, certain routes had in the course of time been 
selected as the most practicable by aboriginal war, 
trading, and hunting parties. Well-defined before 
the coming of Europeans, they were freely used by 
the latter in exploring and exploiting the country. 

Proceeding westward, the first of these St. Law- 
rence-Mississippi routes was one by which the trav- 
eler from Lake Erie might, through Lake Chau- 
tauqua, gain the waters of the Ohio River, the 
Mississippi's great eastern tributary. The Ohio 
could also be reached from Lake Erie by way of the 
present Pennyslvania town of Erie and French 
Creek, a confluent of the Allegheny. The Beaver, 
Muskingum, and Scioto (by way of the Cuyahoga), 
and the Maumee and the Wabash rivers were also 
well-worn trade and war routes between the lower 
Great Lakes and the Ohio. 

From Lake Erie it was possible to ascend the 
Maumee and carry over to the St. Josephs, which 
debouches into Lake Michigan, — thus making a 
short cut across the base of the lower Michigan 
peninsula; or, paddling up the St. Josephs from 
Lake Michigan, one might at the present South 
Bend, Indiana, portage over to the Kankakee, a 
tributary of the Illinois, itself a feeder of the Mis- 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 7 

sissippi ; this route was used by La Salle in 1679, 
and afterwards became famous as a French high- 
way. Chicago River could be ascended, as it was 
in 1674 by Marquette, to the swamps closely ap- 
proaching the Des Plaines, the latter being then 
followed to the Illinois. 

For the French, undoubtedly the favorite path 
between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi was 
that of the Fox-Wisconsin rivers, in the heart of 
central Wisconsin. From Green Bay, the canoeist 
might work his way up the frequently sluggish but 
here and there rapids-strewn Fox to where is now 
the small city of Portage, carry his craft and its 
cargo across a marshy plain of a mile and a half, 
and then reembark on the swift-flowing Wisconsin, 
v/hose current would quickly convey him to the 
Mississippi. Sometimes the Wisconsin, when in 
high spring stage, would, as despite modern levees 
it still occasionally does, leap the scarcely percept- 
ible watershed and pour its flood into the Fox, thus 
sending to the Gulf of St. Lawrence waters ordi- 
narily flowing toward the Gulf of Mexico. In like 
manner the Chicago portage plain was sometimes 
flooded from Lake Michigan, the lake thus seeking 
a southern outlet through the Des Plaines, — an 
egress properly its own in an earlier geological era, 
and in our own day regained through the Chicago 
drainage canal. 

Between Lake Superior and the upper waters of 
the Mississippi there were, not to mention several 



8 WISCONSIN 

minor because more difficult paths, two much-used 
routes. One followed the narrow and somewhat 
turbulent Bois Brule, from whose head-springs there 
was and still is a carrying path of a mile and a half 
to the willow marshes whence flows the beautiful 
St. Croix, an affluent of the great river ; another was 
by way of the foaming St. Louis, from which can 
be reached the watery plain of the Mille Lacs, and 
thence the uppermost pools of the Mississippi. By 
ascending Pigeon Kiver, on the present interna- 
tional boundary, the traveler might by means of a 
score or two of portages and a network of lakes 
ultimately reach Lake Winnipeg ; whence by other 
interlacing waters could be penetrated the great sys- 
tems of the Saskatchewan and the Assiniboin, which 
touch the feet of the Canadian Rockies. Still other 
portages in the far north and northwest brought 
him in connection with streams debouching into 
both the Arctic and the Pacific oceans. 

These important geographical facts were but 
slowly revealed to the French. At first cartogra- 
phers depended on the vague statements of Indians 
who sought the lower settlements for purposes of 
trade ; later, on the reports of explorers, fur-traders, 
missionaries, and soldiers, who upon their respect- 
ive errands had followed returning tribesmen into 
the wilderness, and through close contact with con- 
ditions were enabled to extend the bounds of the 
map of New France. 

Champlain was a born rover, and in person con- 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 9 

ducted several exploring parties, chiefly up the 
Saguenay, into the country around Lake Cham- 
plain, and up the broad Ottawa. The deep trough 
of the Saguenay led him through picturesque scenes 
to the north and northeast, into the rich fur-bear- 
ing region around Lake St. John, among the rudest 
of his savage neighbors. His first visit to the Lake 
Champlain country (1609) resulted unfortunately ; 
for in order to please his Algonkin friends he 
attacked and routed the confederated Iroquois, who 
lived for the most part in the northern half of New 
York State and in northeastern Pennsylvania. 
Thereby he incurred for New France the undying 
hostility of the most astute and vengeful warriors 
among the North American tribes. The effect was, 
for a century and a half, at times highly disastrous 
to missionary and trading enterprises throughout 
the great length of New France, from the Atlantic 
seaboard to the Mississippi. 

Lake Erie was firmly held by these implacable 
enemies, who long stoutly refused to allow French- 
men to pass through, so that Champlain's westward 
exploration must needs be by way of the Ottawa. 
Stemming its strong flood and portaging around 
its numerous rapids, the governor ascended to the 
Mattawan ; after tracing that tributary to its source, 
he followed- the Indian portage trail over to Lake 
Nipissing, and thence descended its many-chan- 
neled outlet, French River, to Georgian Bay. Thus 
in 1615 was discovered Lake Huron, first of the 



10 WISCONSIN 

Great Lakes to be unveiled by the French. Later 
in the year, Champlain returned by Lake Ontario. 
We shall find that Lake Michigan was apparently 
first seen by a Frenchman in 1634, and doubtless 
Superior also by the same adventurer ; while seven 
years later (1641), Jesuit missionaries at Sault de 
Ste. Marie wrote familiarly of the "other great 
lake above the Sault." Erie was seen by the French 
as early as 1640, but unnavigated by them until 
twenty-nine years later, save as unlicensed fur- 
traders conducted an illicit commerce with English 
and Dutch allies of the Iroquois. 

The French had not long been settled at Quebec 
before news began to reach them of what in later 
years proved to be the Mississippi Eiver. At first 
the information brought by Indians, who annually 
came down in their fleets of birch-bark canoes to 
barter with the fur-traders on the St. Lawrence, 
was of the vaguest. It might mean either that in 
the far-away western country certain " great waters " 
flowed directly into the Pacific, or that somewhere 
in what we now call the Middle West might act- 
ually be found the coast of the Pacific itself. Sav- 
ages themselves had necessarily but a limited stock 
of geographical knowledge. They understood well 
their particular tribal range for fishing, hunting, 
trading, and war ; the Iroquois at times raided over 
much of the country north of the Ohio, from New 
England to the Mississippi. But this was excep- 
tional ; to most tribes all beyond their own habitat 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 11 

was apt to be a region of myth, peopled by enemies, 
man-devouring monsters, and angry spirits. The 
aboriginal imagination was well developed ; tribes- 
men cowered before the unknown. 

Information thus coming at second and third 
hand, obviously distorted by the fears, superstitions, 
and personal exaggerations of the tale-tellers, but 
whetted the curiosity of Champlain. His desire to 
solve the mysteries of this western wilderness had 
been accentuated by reports of rich copper mines 
in that quarter, for among the officials of New 
France the discovery of mineral deposits ranked 
only second in importance to the fur-trade. He tells 
us in his "Voyages " ^ that in June, 1610, an Al- 
gonkin chief whom he was entertaining in the neigh- 
borhood of Quebec " drew from a sack a piece of 
copper a foot long, which he gave me. This was 
very handsome and pure. He gave me to under- 
stand that there were large quantities where he had 
taken this, which was on the bank of a river, near 
a great lake. He said that they [the savages of 
those parts] gathered it in lumps, and having 
melted it, spread it in sheets, smoothing it with 
stones." 

In the light of modern knowledge, it is not diffi- 
cult to recognize Lake Superior as the home of 
this historic lump of copper. The governor's guest 
had, possibly, never been there ; the specimen may 

^ Champlain's Voyages (Paris, 1613), pp. 246, 247 ; Prince So- 
ciety ed., vol. ii, pp. 236, 237. 



12 WISCONSIN 

easily have reached him from the west through 
the medium of intertribal barter. North American 
savages were keen traders ; in intervals between 
warfare they held markets with their neighbors, 
at certain well-known aboriginal rendezvous (like 
Mackinac, Green Bay, or Prairie du Chien), for 
the exchange of tribal specialties, and of curiosi- 
ties from a distance. By means of this widespread 
commerce, European articles, bartered to natives 
by early explorers along the Atlantic coast, are 
known to have reached the forest camps of the far 
interior long in advance of the arrival of white 
men themselves. 

After his own laborious journey to Lake Huron, 
five years later, in search of more definite informa- 
tion concerning the mysterious West, further news 
continued to reach Champlain, slowly percolating 
through the uncertain channel of savage report. 
New France was still weak, both in population and 
in resources. In 1629 a predatory English fleet 
had secured the unresisting surrender of Quebec. 
It was not until three years after (1632) that the 
country was restored to its French owners, and the 
governor returned to his charge. In the year of 
restoration probably not over a hundred and eighty 
of the inhabitants of New France might properly 
be called settlers, with perhaps a few score military 
men, seafarers, and visiting commercial adventur- 
ers — during a time when (1627-37) upward of 
twenty thousand settlers were emigrating from 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 13 

Europe to the Englisli colonies. Because of this 
weakness, exploration in New France long kept at 
a lagging pace. There were also affairs on the 
St. Lawrence, among them a protracted hand-to- 
hand struggle with the exasperating Iroquois, that 
sapped the slender resources of the province. Not 
until 1634 could Champlain carry out his long- 
cherished scheme of dispatching an exploring agent 
into the country beyond Lake Huron, to make 
trading treaties with its uncouth tribes, and to 
bring back what information he might of the great 
western water and the reputed mines of copper. 

In the year of his own visit to Lake Huron, 
Champlain inaugurated the policy of selecting 
certain adventurous and vigorous youths of good 
character and sending them out into the Indian 
camps to become through years of experience 
schooled to the forest life, familiarized with abo- 
riginal languages, customs, and thought, and pos- 
sessed of the confidence of the tribesmen. From 
among the graduates of this rude seminary he 
chose his interpreters and explorers: men with 
fibre toughened to the work before them, adding 
to the physical endurance of the savage the intel- 
ligent persistence and tact of the European. 

Among the best of these was Jean Nicolet, who, 
immediately upon his arrival from Normandy in 
1618, being then twenty years of age, was dis- 
patched by the governor to the friendly Algonkins 
of AUumette Island, far up on the Ottawa River. 



14 WISCONSIN 

The associations and language of this tribe were 
in close touch with the West, where men such as 
Nicolet were most needed. Says the quaint old 
chronicle : ^ — 

Forasmuch as his nature and excellent memory in- 
spired good hopes of him, he was sent to winter with 
the Island Algonquins, in order to learn their language. 
He tarried with them two years, alone of the French, 
and always joined the Barbarians in their excursions 
and journeys — undergoing such fatigues as none but 
eyewitnesses can conceive ; he often passed seven or 
eight days without food, and once, full seven weeks with 
no other nourishment than a little bark from the trees. 

During his residence with the Algonkins, Nico- 
let accompanied a party of four hundred of his 
forest friends to New York to patch up a tempo- 
rary peace with the Iroquois, who had recently 
been harrying the Ottawa valley. This mission 
successfully accomplished, he took up his residence 
with the Indians around Lake Nipissing, fifty 
leagues farther westward on the route to Georgian 
Bay. During the " eight or nine years " that he is 
reported to have dwelt among these people, " he 
passed for one of that nation, taking part in the 
very frequent councils of those tribes, having his 
own separate cabin and household, and fishing and 
trading for himself. . . . He was able to control 
and to direct [the savages] whither he wished, 
with a skill that will hardly find an equal." 

1 Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, vol. xxiii, pp. 275-277. 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 15 

It seems likely that Nicolet was even longer than 
" eight or nine years " among the Nipissings, or 
perhaps also with their neighbors to the west, on 
Georgian Bay ; for the close of that term would 
have brought him to the time of the surrender of 
Quebec, and under the brief English regime there 
could have been no official employment for French- 
men of his profession. There is no evidence that 
he left the woods until the restoration of New 
France in 1632. In the latter year we find him 
returning to Quebec, having withdrawn from the 
undoubted fascination of his wild life — " only in 
order to secure his salvation in the use of the sac- 
raments," declares the Jesuit " Kelation." Here he 
received employment as agent and interpreter for 
the Company of the Hundred Associates. To this 
trading monopoly, directed by Cardinal Richelieu, 
had been granted almost sovereign jurisdiction 
throughout the vast transatlantic territory claimed 
by the French, extending from Florida to the Arc- 
tic Circle, and from Newfoundland to the farthest 
west. Upon the restoration, the company resumed 
sway. Governor Champlain now being little more 
than its resident manager. 

The route to Georgian Bay, by way of the Ot- 
tawa and the Mattawan, Lake Nipissing, and 
French River, was now fairly well known to the 
French. Beyond, all was still obscurity. The gift of 
copper from the Algonkin chief spoke eloquently 
of the commercial possibilities of the illimitable 



16 WISCONSIN 

West; still more so the rich furs that annually 
found their way from the upper lakes to the market 
on the strand of Quebec. But at the time Cham- 
plain appears to have been particularly interested 
in persistent rumors then reaching him, concerning 
a certain tribe called " Men of the Sea," whose 
home was rej^uted to be less than four hundred 
leagues^ westward of the Algonkin. 

It was reported by the Algonkins that these peo- 
ple had come to their present habitat from a point 
still farther west, by the shore of a salt sea ; that 
annually there came out of that country, to trade 
with them, a people without hair or beards, and 
with manners and dress so described to Champlain 
as to suggest what he had read concerning the 
appearance of Tartars or Chinese ; and it was con- 
fidently asserted that in the course of their coming 
these western traders traveled upon a great water 
in large canoes of wood (not bark, the material 
used by Canadian tribes). 

Later knowledge has revealed the fact that the 
Men of the Sea were but the Winnebago of our 
day, — a name derived from the Algonkin word 
ouinlpegou^ meaning " men of the fetid (or stink- 
ing) water." When we take into consideration the 
then prevalent notion that North America, if not 

1 The standard French league is about equal to 2.42 English 
miles; the common league, 2.76. But the early French explorers 
used the terra approximately — it is not safe to hold them too 
closely to their estimates of distance. 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 17 

a portion of Asia, was at least a narrow continent 
washed on the west by a probably narrow ocean 
that touched Asia ; and further, the fact that the 
widely-diffused Algonquian ^ stock, embracing most 
of the eastern tribes known to the French, often 
applied to salt water an adjective equivalent to 
"stinking," it is not difficult to comprehend why 
this term was translated into Gens de Mer, We 
understand, also, why the active imagination of 
Champlain impelled him to accept these unknown 
Men of the Sea, or their curious visitors, as pos- 
sible Mongolians, and to hope that through their 
lands was at last to be found that short route to 
the Orient sought by Europeans since the days 
of Columbus, for which they still were searching 
a century after Champlain's death. Ethnologists 
now believe that the term ouinipeg (stinking 
water) as applied by the Algonkins to the Win- 
nebago, had no reference to the sea, but to certain 
ill-smelling sulphur springs in the neighborhood of 
Lake Winnipeg. Whence the swarthy Winnebago, 
an outcast and somewhat degenerate branch of the 
Dakota linguistic stock, are thought to have mi- 
grated to the shores of Green Bay by way of the 
Wisconsin and Fox rivers, — a thin foreign wedge 
projected into the far-stretching territory of the 

^ Algonkin is the name of a tribe, whose chief seat in the days 
of New France was the valley of the Ottawa ; Algonquian is the 
name of the ling-uistic stock, which included the Algonkins and 
nearly all tribes east of the Mississippi and north of the Tennes- 
see, except the Iroquois, the Huron, and a few of their kindred. 



18 WISCONSIN 

Algonquian race. We now recognize, also, that the 
"great water" was no other than the Mississippi 
itself; upon it there came, in long "dug-out" 
canoes ^ to trade with the Winnebago, many of the 
Western and Southern tribes, such as the Sioux 
and the Illinois, to whom the exuberant fancy of 
the Algonkin attributed physical peculiarities that 
were intensified as the tale passed from tribe to 
tribe on its way to the great white chief. 

It is a curious etymological fact that as soon as 
the French discovered that the Men of the Sea were 
but ordinary Indians, they ceased to call them 
Gens de J/er, thenceforth translating ouinijjeg into 
the French word for " stinking," 'puant. Thus in 
their phraseology the Winnebago early became 
known as Les Puants^ or " The Stinkards," — an 
opprobrious term ill merited by those people, who 
were quite as cleanly as most of their neighbors. 

Jesuit missionaries had first been introduced 
into New France in 1611, but withdrew after two 
years of unhappy experiences at Port Royal and 
Mount Desert Island. In 1615 Champlain invited 
to Quebec two missionaries of the Kecollect order, a 
branch of the Franciscan " gray friars." For ten 
years these austere brethren, in cowl and sandals, 

■^ Dug, or rather burned, out of trunks of trees ; the Winne- 
bago of to-day use similar " dug-outs." 

2 Hence La Baye des Puans, by which Green Bay (both the 
bay itself and the hamlet at the mouth of the Fox) was known 
throughout the French regime ; although generally abbreviated 
to La Baye. 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 19 

practiced the rites of the Church in the Canadian 
woods, all the way from the mouth of the Saguenay 
to Lake Nipissing, the scene of Nicolet's long and 
arduous training. But when Richelieu came into 
control of French policy, it was contended that a 
mendicant order like the Recollects was unsuited for 
missionary work among the savages ; that the situ- 
ation required men of a sterner type, with ample 
financial resources. For this reason the Company 
(or Society) of Jesus, a highly successful proselyt- 
ing and teaching agency, then having a strong 
hold upon tlie French court, was requested to send 
representatives to this new and promising field. 

In 1625 three of these Jesuit priests arrived, 
— " black gowns," the Indians called them, from 
their sombre cassocks, — and immediately the field 
of missionary operations broadened ; although it 
was in due time to be discovered that the task of 
promulgating Christian doctrines among the war- 
like tribes of North America was no holiday under- 
taking. The work was abruptly closed by the 
English conquest ; but upon the retrocession in 
1632 the Jesuits came in larger numbers than 
before, and rapidly developed the celebrated mis- 
sions of the interior, the Recollects being there- 
after confined to the maritime districts of Nova 
Scotia, New Brunswick, and much of Maine, an 
ill-defined region then known to the French by the 
general term of Acadia. 

A great part of what we know concerning the 



20 WISCONSIN 

people and affairs of New France, especially be- 
tween 1632 and 1673, is obtained from small vol- 
umes called " Relations," annually published by 
the society in Paris, and containing accounts of 
the far-spread work of the French Jesuit missions 
in North America. Upon these contemporaneous 
documents we in large measure depend for our 
understanding of the circumstances leading to the 
discovery of Wisconsin, and indeed for not a little 
of its subsequent history during the French regime. 

The several tribes of Indians whom the French 
called Huron occupied the country to the east 
and south of Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. 
Among these people the Jesuits maintained sev" 
eral important stations, which in time were to bc' 
come scenes of martyrdom for many of the devotee? 
" black gowns ; " for the war-loving Iroquois, al" 
though related to the Huron, frequently laid waste 
the villages of the latter, chiefly because of their 
adhesion to the French. Ultimately the impover- 
ished Huron, decimated by slaughter, were driven 
from their scarified lands like autumn leaves before 
a gale, and, with their surviving French pastors, 
forced to seek refuge in far distant recesses of the 
country drained by the upper Great Lakes. 

On the first and fourth of July, 1634, respec- 
tively, two fleets of birch-bark canoes left Quebec 
for the confluence of the St. Maurice, where, sev- 
enty-seven miles above the capital, was to be laid 
out, on the northern bank of the St. Lawrence, the 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 21 

fur-trade and missionary station of Three Rivers, 
then the farthest western outpost of the province. 
So far back as native tradition went, the site of 
Three Rivers had been a favorite rendezvous for 
Indian bands when going to or from their winter 
hunts. As in many a similar case in North Amer- 
ica, this circumstance had induced the French to 
establish themselves here ; and within the protect- 
ing shadow of their little log fort was in due time 
reared a hamlet of hahitaris that eventually grew 
into the present modern industrial town. 

The two companies of Frenchmen borne in these 
flotillas consisted about equally of men who had 
been dispatched by the Hundred Associates to 
build the fort, and a party consisting of the Jesuit 
Fathers Jean de Brebeuf, Antoine Daniel, and 
Ambroise Davost, with six lay assistants, who 
were first to establish a mission to the Indians of 
that neighborhood and then proceed to a like serv- 
ice in the country of the Huron. Accompanying 
these pioneers of the cross was Jean Nicolet,^ in- 

1 Parkman, in his Jesuits in North America (1870), placed 
the date of Nicolet's voyage as "in or before the year 1639," 
■wherein he but followed Shea in the latter's Discovery of the Mis- 
sissippi (1852). Benjamin Suite, in his Melanges d^histoire et de 
litterature (1876), first showed that the proper date could be none 
other than 1634. This was adopted by Butterfield in Discovery of 
the Northwest (1881), who still more conclusively established that 
as the year. Hebberd, in Wisconsin under the Dominion of France 
(1890), vigorously contends for 1638; but Abb^ Gosselin's appar- 
ently definitive Jean Nicolet, 1618-1642 (1893), accepts Suite's and 
Butterfield's conclusion, as does the present writer. 



22 WISCONSIN 

tent upon his assigned task of discovering and 
treating with the Men of the Sea. 

The Jesuits had anticipated meeting at Three 
Kivers a large party of Huron, expected down the 
Ottawa to trade with the French ; they intended to 
seek from these savages permission to return with 
them to their country. 

They waited there some time for the Hurons, who 
did not come down in so great numbers this year as 
usual, because the Iroquois, having been informed that 
five hundred men of this nation were moving toward 
their country to make war upon them, themselves went 
on ahead to the number of fifteen hundred, it is said ; 
and, having surprised those who were to surprise them, 
they killed about two hundred of them, and took more 
than one hundred prisoners.^ 

At first readily granting the request, the fickle 
Huron soon expressed reluctance at taking these 
ten Frenchmen back with them, pleading illness 
and making all manner of flimsy excuses. It was 
only after much coaxing and present-giving, and a 
solemn promise that the white passengers should 
do their full share of paddling, that the tribesmen 
yielded. It was a toilsome journey against the 
sweeping currents of the Ottawa — "three hun- 
dred leagues to make," says the giant Brebeuf, 

^ Jesuit Relations, vol. vii, pp. 213-215, being Father Br^- 
beuf's letter to his superior, Le Jeune, in the Relation for 1634, 
upon which we depend for details; but Nicolet is not therein 
mentioned by name. 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 23 

" over a route full of horrors." Owing to an out- 
break among the savage boatmen of an epidemic 
resembling measles, the Frenchmen found that 
theirs was indeed the laboring oar. '' We start 
so early in the morning," writes Brebeuf , " and 
lie down so late, and paddle so continually, that 
we hardly have time enough to devote to our 
prayers ; indeed, I have been obliged to finish 
this by the light of the fire." At best their food 
was of the scantiest, and there were days when 
none was forthcoming to the poor missionaries, 
who as yet had not so fully accustomed them- 
selves to the privations of savage life as had 
Nicolet, to whom both route and conditions were 
familiar. 

The immediate destination of the Jesuits was 
Allumette Island, where Nicolet tarried awhile 
with them, among his old friends the Algonkins. 
At last bidding his countrymen farewell, the ex- 
plorer pushed on up the Ottawa, doubtless with 
Indian companions, in due course ascended the 
Mattawan, whose headsprings lie close to Lake 
Nipissing,^ carried his canoe and baggage over 
the easy portage, crossed the stormy lake, and fol- 
lowed its outlet, French River, down into the 
beautiful vistas of Georgian Bay. Champlain had 
preceded him thither by nineteen years, and prob- 
ably Nicolet himself, during his long life among 

^ There is evidence that in an earlier geological age Lake Hu- 
ron here found an outlet to the Ottawa. 



24 WISCONSIN 

the Nipissing, had more than once journeyed to 
these waters. 

Here, apparently at the uttermost limit of 
French discovery to the west, Nicolet spent some 
time in parleys with the Huron, cementing their 
friendly relations with the whites, and from them 
gaining such information as was obtainable con- 
cerning the Men of the Sea and other tribes along 
the shores of the upper lakes. From the Huron 
villages, also, he secured seven tribesmen to accom- 
pany and assist him upon his voyage. In a long 
canoe of birch bark, the eight travelers into the 
unknown threaded their way cautiously among the 
almost countless islands that fringe the pine-forested 
shore of Georgian Bay ; a region in our time familiar 
to ever-increasing shoals of summer tourists. 

From French River the course lies almost west- 
erly, between La Cloche Island and the Grand 
Manitoulin, thence through the picturesque archi- 
pelago of the North Channel, past Cockburn, 
Drummond, and St. Joseph islands, and into the 
tortuous River St. Mary's, the outlet of Lake Su- 
perior. Fifteen miles below the foot of that inland 
sea they encountered the stairlike rapids afterwards 
named by the Jesuits the Sault de Ste. Marie ; and 
there Nicolet, first of all recorded white men, prob- 
ably set foot on the soil of what a century and a 
half later became the Northwest Territory.^ 

1 The Chippewa village wherein the French mission was later 
established, was on the east (Canadian) side of the Sault; but 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 26 

At the Sault he found a considerable villajre 
of the Chippewa, engaged in fishing. Here again 
Nicolet, as an ambassador of the great white chief, 
was entertained at gluttonous feasts of fish and 
dog-meat, and engaged in solemn councils whereat 
prolix oratory and innumerable pipef uls of tobacco 
were the distinguishing features. It is fair to pre- 
sume that the traveler's curiosity led him to the 
great lake above, or at least to its outlet from White 
Fish Bay, but there is no record of such a visit. 
Released from Chippewa hospitality, he returned 
down the St. Mary's with his faithful Huron boat- 
men, and thence turning to the west and southwest 
hugged the wooded islands and picturesque head- 
lands lining the north shore of Lake Huron as far 
as the Straits of Mackinac. Stemming its swift 
tide, and probably resting for a time with the na- 
tives of the richly verdured Island of Mackinac, 
that divides these narrow waters, Nicolet's canoe 
was soon dancing upon the green waves of Lake 
Michigan ; he, so far as we can tell, their first white 
discoverer. 

It was now essential for the explorer closely to 
skirt the northern coast of this new-found lake, 
frequently camping upon the sandy edges of its 
dense mantle of pine, either to await the passage of 
storms or to refresh his weary crew. Now and then 

there is little doubt that Nicolet touched also the Michigan side 
of the rapids. His approach to the Sault was presumably 
through the Canadian channel. 



26 WISCONSIN 

they "encountered a number of small tribes in 
coming and going," ^ for even in aboriginal times 
Lake Michigan was a somewhat busy thoroughfare 
between the East and the West, connecting with the 
Mississippi region by way of the Fox- Wisconsin, 
the Chicago, and the St. Josephs portage routes. 
Unfamiliar with the savages west of Georgian Bay, 
and untaught in their several dialects, Nicolet was 
obliged to communicate with them by the all but 
universal Indian sign language in which from his 
training he must needs have been long familiar. 
According to the Jesuit chronicler, the strangers 
" fastened two sticks in the earth, and hung gifts 
thereon, so as to relieve these tribes from the notion 
of mistaking them for enemies to be massacred." 

Projecting southward from the northwest shore 
of Lake Michigan is a rock-bound peninsula, some 
thirty miles in length, terminated by the cliff and 
reefs of Point Detour. It is presumable that the 
experienced and therefore cautious Nicolet received 
good local advice at the Indian villages nestled 
at wide intervals along this somewhat forbidding 
coast. No doubt following the route afterwards 
commonly adopted by the French, and called by 
them "grand traverse," he proceeded in his frail 
craft southwestward to Point Detour, thence across 
the entrance of Green Baj'',^ under shelter of the 

^ Helation o£ 1642-43, which we are now following'. 
2 Locally called " Death's Door," because wind, current, and 
dangerous rocks often combine to render its navigation difficult. 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 27 

outlying fringe of tree-girt islands, — Summer, 
Poverty, St. Martin, Rock, Washington, and their 
lesser fellows, in our day the homes of Icelandic 
and other hardy fishermen, — and gained the south- 
ern mainland at the imposing cliff now known as 
Death's Door Bluff. 

Green Bay is shaped much like a gigantic letter 
V, opening to the northeast. Fox River enters from 
the southwest, at the vertex of the an^e. The east- 
ern shore of the bay is formed by the Green Bay 
peninsula, separating it from Lake Michigan — 
substantially a ridge of Niagara limestone, the 
same formation that constitutes the basis of Detour 
peninsula to the north. The connecting string of 
islands is evidence of a local breaking down of the 
ledge. Thus the eastern shore of Green Bay is gen- 
erally high, deeply indented by several small bays, 
and exhibiting many bold, rocky headlands and 
abrupt clay slopes, their heights well clothed with 
both hard and soft woods. Its western banks, how- 
ever, are low and sandy, with frequent harbors 
separated by shallow stretches. 

It is stated by the Jesuit recorder that the ex- 
plorer rested at a native camp, doubtless either of 
Menominee or Potawatomi, two days distant from 
the Men of the Sea. There was at the time a con- 
siderable village of this character on the west shore 
of Green Bay at the mouth of Menominee River, 
now a natural boundary between Wisconsin and 
Michigan ; but it seems improbable that Nicolet 



28 WISCONSIN 

crossed the broad bay to reach it. More reason- 
able is it to suppose that his tarrying-place was 
either on the mainland or upon one of the islands 
in the neighborhood of Death's Door Bluff, which 
is ninety miles, or two short days' canoe journey, 
from his objective. Here the ambassador explained 
his errand, and after the manner of the Indians 
one of the local tribesmen was sent forward as a 
herald, with tidings of the coming of the white 
stranger who bore offers of peace and good-will to 
the savages of the upper lakes. " Which word," 
says the "Relation," "was especially well received 
when they heard that it was a European who car- 
ried the message." 

About twelve miles down the bay from the mouth 
of Fox River, the east shore consists of a long 
precipice of reddish clay, rising about a hundred 
feet above a broad, pebbly strand. For perhaps a 
century past, this conspicuous bluff has locally been 
known as Red Banks. In the days of Nicolet it 
was surmounted by a large palisaded fort ; to the 
southward and eastward stretched several hundreds 
of acres rudely cultivated in the native manner 
and grown to maize, pumpkins, and beans ; while 
ancient burial and efifigy mounds dotted the field, 
bespeaking a long-continued aboriginal occupation. 
At this vantage point, apparently, was the long- 
sough t-£or village of the Winnebago. 

It is probable that these people had long been 
on the way thither, from the country beyond Lake 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 29 

SujDerior ; for migrations of primitive people have 
usually been by easy stages, dictated by the exi- 
gencies of food supply or the pressure of hostile 
tribes. But it is unlikely that the establishment of 
the seat of their power at Red Banks antedated 
Nicolet's arrival by more than a few generations 
— long enough for the story of their origin to have 
become shrouded in tradition, and yet not so long 
that that story and their personal characteristics 
did not still attract the curiosity of Algonquian 
neighbors, causing them to be talked about as com- 
parative strangers, and called Men of the Sea. 

Little doubt can be entertained that by the 
time Nicolet had reached Sault Ste. Marie, or in 
any event Mackinac Island, he had become dis- 
abused of the notion that the Winnebago were 
other than ordinary savages. As he had slowly 
drawn nearer them, the reports of tribesmen whom 
he visited must have become more and more vivid 
concerning the Dakota outcasts. Long before he 
reached their habitat, their features and characteris- 
tics had probably assumed something like definite- 
ness in the mind of this astute student of North 
American Indians, 

When starting on his journey from Quebec, 
expecting to meet Asiatics in this far-away corner 
of the continent, the diplomatic Nicolet had placed 
in his scanty pack " a grand robe of China damask, 
all strewn with flowers and birds of many colors." 
There was perhaps little need for displaying so 



30 WISCONSIN 

extraordinary a garment among the naked savages 
of the upper lakes ; nevertheless Nicolet well 
understood the value of ceremonial in appealing to 
the imagination of primitive peoples, and doubtless 
his sense of humor was also aroused, for on ap- 
proaching the palisaded village he donned his gaudy- 
mandarin attire. The Winnebago had sent out 
several of their most athletic young warriors to 
meet "the wonderful man," who apparently was 
the first European to visit these people. In the 
strong and simple language of the Jesuit " Rela- 
tion," " they meet him ; they escort him, and carry 
all his baggage." But as the strange procession 
ascended the cliff by an angling path and entered 
the excited town, — Nicolet in his variegated gown, 
his seven breech-clouted Huron companions, and 
the delegation of young Winnebago burden-bearers, 
— " the women and children fled, at the sight of a 
man who carried thunder in both hands ; for thus 
they called the two pistols that he held." 

News traveled quickly among Indian tribes. At 
night signal fires were lighted on the hilltops, and 
swift runners and canoe-men were dispatched to 
acquaint neighboring villages verbally of the com- 
ing of the great white chief. Soon, says the " Rela- 
tion," " there assembled " at Red Banks " four or 
five thousand men. Each of the chief men made a 
feast for him, and at one of these banquets they 
served at least sixscore Beavers." Thus, amid much 
feasting, harangue, and mutual giving of presents, 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 31 

Nicolet negotiated a solemn treaty with tlie Men of 
the Sea, who, having but slight conception of what 
it all meant, courteously bound themselves to re- 
main the firm commercial and military allies of 
their new father the King of France, and to consider 
themselves his most dutiful children. 

From their position on Green Bay the Winne- 
bago commanded the Great-Lakes terminus of the 
Fox-Wisconsin portage route from the Mississippi. 
There is every reason to believe that they had some 
knowledge of the latter drainage trough ; for al- 
though some of the tribes upon the upper Fox and 
along the Wisconsin may at times have been hos- 
tile to them, it is recorded by the Jesuits that 
in peaceful periods wanderers from toward the 
Mississippi frequently passed through Green Bay 
on the road to Mackinac and still farther east- 
ward. 

The curiosity of the explorer appears to have led 
him to ascend the Fox for about ninety miles to an 
interesting Indian village which we shall find promi- 
nently identified with later visits of the French. Its 
location has been the subject of much dispute, but 
historians now generally agree that the site was in 
the immediate neighborhood of Berlin, in Green 
Lake County. In the Jesuit " Relation " for 1640, 
Father le Jeune wrote : " Sieur Nicolet, who has 
advanced farthest into these distant countries, has 
assured me that, if he had sailed three days' jour- 
ney farther upon a great river which issues from 



32 WISCONSIN 

this lake [Huron] he would have found the sea." * 
This is rather enigmatical, and has in our own 
time given rise to much speculation. Some allow- 
ance, however, must be made for Nicolet's ignor- 
ance of languages differing widely from the dialects 
with which he was familiar ; for the lapse of six 
years between his voyage and the printed ac- 
count of it ; also for geographical confusion on the 
part of his chronicler, Le Jeune, who was not con- 
versant with the region. Without here discussing 
the matter in detail, it is quite evident to students 
in this field that the reference is to Fox River, 
despite the fact that that stream flows i7ito Lake 
Michigan rather than from Lake Huron ; that 
three days' farther journey from the Indian village, 
in the ascent of the Fox, would have brought Nico- 
let to the Fox -Wisconsin portage, and that four 
days' additional canoeing down the west-flowing 
Wisconsin would have carried him into the Missis- 
sippi.^ 

Just why Nicolet did not pursue his journey to 
the supposed Western Sea, which his hosts must 
have informed him could be reached within a week, 
is of course now unknowable. It is possible that he 
considered his mission ended when treating with 
the Winnebago and other Fox River tribes ; again, 
the autumn must now have been reached, for he 

^ Jesuit Relations, vol. xviii, p. 237. 

2 See argument in Butterfield, Discovery of the Northwest, 
pp. 67-69. 



THE COMING OF NICOLET 33 

had been subjected to many long and weary delays 
in protracted pow-wows with the tribes along his 
route. Certain it is that, in the words of the Jesuit 
annalist, " The peace concluded, he returned to the 
Huron, and some time later to the Three Rivers, 
where he continued his employment as Agent and 
Interpreter, to the great satisfaction of both the 
French and the Savages, by whom he was equally 
and singularly loved." ^ 

1 Eelation of 1642-43. 



CHAPTER II 

FRENCH EXPLOEERS AND MISSIONARIES 

After wintering with the Hurons, Nicolet re- 
turned to Quebec in the summer of 1635. The fol- 
lowing Christmas came the death of Champlain, 
one of the most valorous and enterprising spirits of 
his time. The new governor, Montmagny, possessed 
little of his predecessor's enthusiasm for explora- 
tion, so that whatever plans Champlain may have 
entertained regarding the imperial and commercial 
exploitation of the country of the upper Great 
Lakes were for a long period allowed to lapse. It 
must be remembered, moreover, that as the water- 
ways ran, Wisconsin and the Men of the Sea were 
a full fifteen hundred miles distant from seven- 
teenth-century Quebec — thirty-six hours of pas- 
sive, luxurious travel upon a modern railway, but 
two or three months of irksome toil in the primi- 
tive days of Nicolet. The long route was beset by a 
thousand difficulties — powerful currents, swirling 
rapids, great waterfalls, laborious portages, the 
dangers of navigating stormy and rock-bound in- 
land seas in frail canoes of bark, the annoyances 
of extortion and mutinies by savage crews, the often 
pressing problem of food supply, and deadly perils 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 35 

from hostile tribes who frequently resented with 
violence the intrusion of a stranger upon their wild 
domains. Boldly adventurous as were the handful 
of pioneers of New France, it is small, wonder that 
Wisconsin did not at first tempt many to emulate 
the enterprising journey of Champlain's agent to 
the wilderness of this far Northwest. 

So far as we are now aware, it was twenty years 
before a European again set foot upon the soil of 
our state. But let us not be over-ready to make 
definite assertions regarding priority of exploration 
in New France. Under the fur-trade monopoly of 
the Company of the Hundred Associates (ending 
in 1663, but followed by governmental control 
almost equally galling), it was a felony to carry 
on commerce with the Indians that was not duly 
licensed by that corporation. Articles needed for 
barter with the aborigines must be obtained from 
the company at prices absurdly high ; to it must in 
turn be sold the resultant furs at such rates as it 
cared to pay. Every operation of the licensed forest 
trader was subject to regulations fettering his free- 
dom and curbing his profits, to the advantage of 
the monopolists. 

The man who dared conduct unlicensed trade 
was styled a coureur de hois (wood ranger). 
Legally he was an outlaw, the lightest punishment 
he might expect being the liability at any time to 
lose his property by confiscation. Official attitude 
towards the coureurs de hois varied greatly, how- 



36 WISCONSIN 

ever, according to the prevalent temper of the 
French court at Versailles. Free-traders, who at 
such risks either openly or covertly defied oppress- 
ive commercial restrictions set up by the greed of 
government favorites, at times constituted perhaps 
a majority of those engaged in the fur traffic of 
New France. Among them were many of the most 
daring and picturesque characters of their day, 
some of whom are entitled to honorable recognition 
in any history of our continental interior. 

Following Indian bands upon war and hunting 
trails, and associated with red folk by ties of prim- 
itive marriage and genuine comradeship, their 
travels into strange lands were apt often to be 
years in advance of official exploration. Even when 
they possessed the requisite taste and education 
for making such records, they seldom kept journals 
of their adventurous wanderings. Neither were they 
accustomed, these outlaws of the " bush," to talk 
freely of their affairs when revisiting the small 
settlements on the lower St. Lawrence ; for their 
every word might readily be brought to the atten- 
tion of the king's gainful officials, who, though 
themselves usually engaged in illicit trade, were 
too often eager to curry favor at Versailles by 
reporting the ill deeds of others. 

The closer one's study of official documents and 
ecclesiastical journals of the time, with their often 
shadowy allusions to the operations of coureurs de 
hois^ the stronger grows the conviction that, de- 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 37 

spite the honors which history showers upon dis- 
coveries by the governmental explorers and Jesuit 
missionaries of New France, the palm must not 
seldom in all honesty be awarded to nameless forest 
traders ; these men familiarly dwelt, hunted, and 
bartered with the aborigines of the upper lakes and 
the Mississippi basin long previous to the appear- 
ance of those commonly reputed to be first of Eu- 
ropeans upon the savage scene. 

By assembling scattered patches of information, 
it has chanced that the personality of a few of these 
wandering bush merchants has been revealed to us, 
and their names added to the slowly lengthening 
bead-roll of early Western explorers. Such were 
Pierre Esprit, the Sieur Radisson, and his com- 
panion and brother-in-law, Medard Chouart, the 
Sieur des Groseilliers. 

It is recorded in the Jesuit *' Relation " for 
1655-56,^ that " On the sixth of August, 1654, two 
young Frenchmen, full of courage,'* and incited 
thereto by Governor Jean de Lauson, left Quebec 
for the upper lakes, upon "a journey of more than 
five hundred leagues," under the guidance of a 
party of returning savages from that region, who 
had ventured in their canoes down the St. Lawrence 
to barter rich furs for the manufactures and gew- 
gaws of Europe. The adventurous twain returned 
to Quebec " toward the end of August of this year, 
1656. Their arrival caused the Country universal 

^ Jesuit lielations, vol. xliii, pp. 219 et seq. 



38 WISCONSIN 

joy, for they were accompanied by fifty canoes, 
laden with goods [furs] which the French came to 
this end of the world to procure." 

The travelers related their interesting story to 
the Jesuit fathers, who eagerly sought news from 
the farthest wilderness, among other things telling 
of their visit to " the great Lake of the Hurons, 
and another near it [Michigan], being as large as 
the Caspian Sea." In that distant region they had 
fraternized with the Winnebago, or the Men of the 
Sea, to whom Nicolet displayed his gorgeous robe ; 
" they also caused great joy in all Paradise, during 
their travels, by Baptizing and sending to Heaven 
about three hundred little children." Moreover, 
the missionary journalist adds in a note of worldly, 
satisfaction, " these two young men have not under- 
gone hardships for naught in their long journey . . . 
they enriched some Frenchmen upon their return." 

Nine years later, Radisson, then at the court of 
London seeking for his enterprises the patronage 
of King Charles II, wrote in English for His Ma- 
jesty's information a curious journal of his adven- 
tures, or " voyages," covering the years 1652-64. 
After nearly two centuries of neglect, this manu- 
script was purchased by a collector of antiquities 
and eventually drifted into the Bodleian Library 
at Oxford.^ Crude and sometimes chaotic m liter- 
ary form, as might be expected of an ill-educated 

^ A narrative in French of later travels by Radisson and Groseil- 
liers (1682-83) has found a resting'-plaee in the British Museum. 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 39 

man writing in a language other than his own, 
generally destitute of dates, abounding in almost 
hopeless ambiguities and contradictions, and exas- 
peratingly vague as to geography, this remarkable 
human document was first published two centuries 
after it was written (1885). ^ 

Allowing for the prevalent note of exaggeration 
as to details, customary in travelers' stories of the 
seventeenth century, it is but fair to assume that 
in all essentials Eadisson's narrative is to be taken 
at its face value. 

In the record of their earlier wanderings among 
the savages of the Northwest, he had no reason, 
now apparent to us, for serious misrepresentation. 
That Radisson and Groseilliers are identical with 
"the two young Frenchmen" of the " Relation " 
of 1655-56, and that the circumstances narrated 
by the former actually occurred in the main as 
stated, seems reasonably assured. 

By piecing together the "Relations" and the 
journal of Radisson it would appear that these two 
adventurers, starting from Quebec in August, 1654, 
followed the trail of Nicolet up the Ottawa River 
and over to Lake Huron, where they traded with 
the Huron Indians ; thence proceeding by the way 
of Mackinac Straits to Lake Michigan, on the west 
shore of which they wintered with the Potawatomi 
and visited neighboring tribes. 

^ By the Prince Society, Boston, under the editorship of 
Gideon D. Scull of London. 



40 WISCONSIN 

We weare every where much made of ; neither wanted 
victuals, for all the different nations that we mett con- 
ducted us & furnished us w**^ necessaries. . . . We weare 
Cesars, being nobody to contradict us. We went away 
free from any burden, whilst those poore miserable 
thought themselves happy to carry our Equipage, for 
the hope that they had that we should give them a 
brasse ring, or an awle, or an needle. 

In the spring of 1655 the two traders, still on 
the track of Nicolet, seem to have ascended the 
Fox River, and to have visited the large native 
village upon its upper reaches, where vivid memo- 
ries of Nicolet must still have lingered. Exactly 
where they wandered after this is uncertain ; but 
Radisson quaintly writes, " We ware 4 moneths in 
our voyage without doeing any thing but goe from 
river to river. . . . anxious to be knowne with 
the remotest people." Once they visited a " great 
river " with " 2 branches, the one toward the west, 
the other toward the South, w^^ we believe runns 
towards Mexico, by the tokens they gave us." Vague 
reports reached them that upon this southern-flowing 
stream were " men that build great cabbans & have 
great beards & had such knives as we have had . . . 
w^^ made us believe they weare Europeans." It is 
not difficult for us to believe that the forked river, al- 
though unknown to Radisson as such, was the Missis- 
sippi with its Missouri affluent, and that these uneasy 
wanderers had accidentally discovered the former 
eighteen years previous to Jolliet and Marquette. 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 41 

Keturning down the Fox, apparently in the 
autumn of 1655, the adventurers proceeded to the 
native fishing villages clustered along the Sault 
Ste. Marie, there spending the winter, hunting and 
trading with their hosts, exploring a portion of the 
southern coast of Lake Superior, making long in- 
land expeditions with the Indians on snowshoes, 
and even penetrating to far-distant Hudson Bay. 
The Jesuit chronicler has told us of their reaching 
Quebec the following August. 

The thirst for exploration and wild sport strong 
within them, Radisson and Groseilliers soon made 
preparations for another voyage. But there had 
come a change in official policy, and they were no 
longer in favor at the governor's house. The 
Vicomte d'Argenson was then the representative 
of the king in New France, and warned these un- 
licensed merchants that they must not again venture 
into the Northwest. Nevertheless, in the spring of 
1659 they contrived to escape governmental vigi- 
lance, and clandestinely departed for the upper 
lakes in the company of a party of Chippewa who 
were returning to Sault Ste. Marie from the annual 
fur market at the French settlements. Tarrying for 
a second time at the village of their hosts, the adven- 
turers paddled westward along the south shore of 
Lake Superior, accompanied by some twenty-three 
canoe-loads of Huron and Ottawa tribesmen who 
were fleeing to the Wisconsin wilds to escape Iro- 
quois raiders, just then ravaging the country to the 



42 WISCONSIN 

east of Lake Huron. Carrying their boats across 
the short portage route which nearly bisects Ke- 
weenaw Point/ the party finally found their way to 
Chequamegon Bay, a deep notch in the southern 
shore-line of Superior, studded by the beautiful 
Apostle Islands. 

The savages here left the lake, continuing their 
journey over various land and water routes to 
camps of their tribesmen in the interior. Huron 
and Ottawa had established hiding-places upon the 
upper waters of the south-flowing Chippewa, the 
Black, and the St. Croix ; there, just over the di- 
vide, two or three days' journey south of Lake Su- 
perior, in a rolling country densely clad with pines 
and thickly strewn with inter-communicating lakes 
and streams, they felt reasonably secure against 
their bloodthirsty enemies from the Niagara fron- 
tier. On their part, the two traders remained on 
Chequamegon Bay to traffic with the several neigh- 
boring tribes who resorted to this shore for fishing, 
and who entertained a superstitious reverence for 
some of the islands, particularly Madelaine,^ as the 
supposed abode of spirits. 

Erecting a rude fortified hut of bushes and logs, 
apparently on the southwest shore of the bay, the 
coureurs de hois spent a few weeks in becoming 

1 Now completed by a federal canal, which is used by some of 
the largest vessels afloat on Lake Superior. This cut-short saves, 
to boats following the south shore, a journey of nearly two hun- 
dred miles around the peninsula. 

2 Site of the La Pointe village of to-day. 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 43 

familiar with the country and its people. Then, con- 
cealing the greater part of their trading goods in 
a pit, or cache^ they set out on a hunt with their 
Huron and Ottawa friends about the headwaters of 
the Chippewa. Radisson's narrative is Hogarthian 
in its realism. We have in his pages a startlingly 
vivid report of the horrors as well as the joys of 
the winter's experience. Unusually severe weather 
set in, game fled before the northern blasts, a famine 
ensued, even moccasins and robes and bark were 
boiled for food ; so deep was the snow that the 
hunters traveled only with the greatest difficulty, 
and five hundred men, women, and children were 
left dead upon the trail. " If," says Radisson, " I 
should expresse all that befell us in that strange 
accidents, a great volume would not containe it."^ 
With the coming of spring and hope, the party 
set out on a long search for food, penetrating as 
far west as the Sioux camps stretched along the 
upper reaches of the Mississippi. At last returning 
to Chequamegon, they built another small fort, 
visited some Indians on the northwest shore of 
Lake Superior, and in August returned to the lower 
country in a fleet of fur-laden Huron canoes bound 
for the Montreal market. Their second home-com- 
ing, however, was a far different experience from 
the greeting accorded them four years before. Now 
treated as outlaws, their furs were confiscated by 

^ The journal, so far as it relates to Wisconsin, is given in full 
in Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. xi. 



44 WISCONSIN 

the governor, which meant to thera an almost com- 
plete loss of property, while their great services to 
New France as explorers were quite ignored. 

Angered at this harsh treatment, the adventurers 
first sought redress from the king, on the plea of 
having opened to trade new and vast countries in 
the West ; but justice being refused, they turned 
to England for recognition. It was while in London 
on this errand that Kadisson wrote his now famous 
journal. Eventually, in 1669, the vengeful explor- 
ers piloted an English ship into Hudson Bay, an 
enterprise which led at once to the organization of 
the great Hudson's Bay Company, which from that 
day to this has controlled for England the fur 
traffic of the far North. The after career of Radis- 
son and Groseilliers was marked by periods of vacil- 
lation between adherence to France and England 
by turns. They finally died in London, ill con- 
sidered by the English, and by the French dubbed 
traitors to their native land. Nevertheless, this 
singular pair were men of elemental genius and 
uncommon enterprise and daring. To them we owe 
in large measure the introduction of Europeans to 
Lake Superior, Hudson Bay, and the vast solitudes 
lying between. 

But while Radisson and Groseilliers were dis- 
credited by officials, who were in the interest of the 
commercial monopoly of New France, their tale 
deeply interested the Jesuits, who ever were seek- 
ing new fields of missionary labor. Some of the 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 45 

canoes in the fur-trading fleet in which the wan- 
derers had returned to Montreal were manned by 
Huron from Black River, in Wisconsin. These 
savages spent some ten days at the island settle- 
ment, feasting with their customers, and about the 
first of September (1660) set out on the long home- 
ward trip, taking with them Father Rene Menard, 
together with his body servant and seven other 
Frenchmen — lay brothers, devoted to the material 
interests of the mission. 

The first Jesuit representative to penetrate 
west of Sault Ste. Marie, Menard was then only 
some fifty -five years of age ; but so arduous had 
been his long life among the Indians that his hair 
was white, he was thickly scarred by wounds, and 
" his form was bent as with great age." The long 
journey into the Northwest proved too severe a 
strain upon one so spent. He suffered much from 
exposure to inclement weather, was forced to pad- 
dle almost continuously, to carry heavy packs over 
the frequent rough portages, and, as usual with 
Jesuit guests on similar voyages, was the victim of 
many indignities at the hands of his hosts. By 
the time the little party had made their weary way 
up the Ottawa, through Georgian Bay, around 
Sault Ste. Marie, and alongshore as far as Kewee- 
naw portage, an accident happened to his canoe, 
and he and his fellow Frenchmen were there de- 
serted to shift for themselves. 

The winter was passed in a squalid Ottawa vil- 



46 WISCONSIN 

lage, where the father nearly lost his life in a 
famine that overtook the natives of the region. 
In the spring of 1661 came an invitation to visit 
and baptize some starveling Huron, skulking in 
the pine forest around the headsprings of the 
Black, people who had known the Jesuits while 
dwelling in their own country to the east. Thither 
Menard sought them, over a difficult portage route 
of a hundred and fifty miles, by way of Lake 
Vieux Desert and the Wisconsin River, his com- 
panions being his serving man and several re- 
turning Huron who had come to trade with the 
Ottawa. While portaging around Bill Cross Rap- 
ids, not far from the present city of Merrill, on 
the Wisconsin, Menard — bearing his scanty pack 
of sacred pictures, silver altar vessels, and camp 
kettle, with which every forest missionary was 
provided — lost his way in the woods, either fall- 
ing victim to the club of some covetous savage, 
or dying of exposure and starvation ; certain it 
is, he was never after seen of white men. Thus 
miserably ended the career of Wisconsin's pioneer 
herald of the Gospel, who fell in the active dis- 
charge of duty, as might a soldier on the field of 
battle or one of his own martyred brethren in ill- 
fated Huronia. 

Four years passed before the Lake Superior 
mission was reopened. When Father Claude Al- 
louez arrived in 1665, he chose Chequamegon Bay 
as the seat of his work, erecting a chapel of bark 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 47 

on the southwestern mainland, probably not far 
from the site of Radisson and Groseilliers' first 
trading-hut. In the neighborhood was an aborig- 
inal village, composed of remnants of eight or ten 
fu"-itive tribes that had either been driven west- 
ward by the all-conquering Iroquois or eastward 
by the scourging Sioux of the Western plains. A 
long, northward-projecting tongue of land, a nat- 
ural breakwater, bounds Chequamegon Bay on the 
east, and this object gave name both to the mission 
and the region, " La Pointe du Saint Esprit," a 
term soon abbreviated to La Pointe. 

Although a successful veteran in the work, Al- 
louez found his present flock singularly obdurate 
and unmannerly. After four years of fruitless la- 
bor, he was, in the autumn of 1669, relieved by a 
younger and less jaded missionary. Father Jacques 
Marquette. He himself was dispatched by his 
superior to Green Bay, and for two years labored 
zealously among its shore tribes, and as far up the 
Fox as the large polyglot native village near Berlin, 
which Nicolet had been first to visit. In the win- 
ter of 1671-72 he founded the more favorably 
situated mission of St. Francis Xavier, overlooking 
the rapids of De Pere.^ This, the first obstruction 
in the navigation of the Fox, had confronted 
Nicolet and Radisson in their canoe voyages, and 

^ Originally " Rapides des P^res," in allusion to the mission- 
aries stationed there ; hut under English occupation, this was 
corrupted to De Pere. 



48 WISCONSIN 

by now was no doubt familiar to man 3^ unrecorded 
Frenclimen who, as wandering fur-traders, had fol- 
lowed them to this distant wilderness. 

At St. Francis Xavier, Allouez, with patient 
toil, achieved considerable success, as success was 
measured among the wilderness missionaries of 
New France. To the west, among the Outagami 
(Foxes), he established the mission of St. Mark, 
probably near the present New London, on Wolf 
River, a tributary of the upper Fox ; and farther 
up the latter stream, that of St. James at the vil- 
lage already mentioned. Among wandering bands 
of many tribes, scattered throughout the broad 
country between Lake Michigan and the Missis- 
sippi River, he painfully toiled along tangled forest 
paths and by interlocking waterways. In far-away 
Indian camps, and in his crude chapels of bark 
and reeds, he baptized many of the red folk, chiefly 
women and infants, and now and then nominally 
convinced a tribesman that the white man's " medi- 
cine " was more efficient than the machinations of 
the aboriginal soothsayer. Nominally, we say, for 
there is room for strong doubt whether, despite the 
splendidly heroic efforts and not infrequent mar- 
tyrdom of European missionaries,, which illumine 
the pages of our history, any considerable number 
of normal North American savages were ever fully 
converted to the Christian faith. 

In due time. Father Louis Andre came to assist 
Allouez in these truly arduous labors and frequent 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 49 

sufferings and perils. They in turn were followed 
by Fathers Silvy, Albanel, Nouvel, Enjalran, and 
Chardon, — the last-named closing the old Jesuit 
regime in Wisconsin ; for the uprising of the Fox 
Indians, of which we shall read later, came to 
make life unendurable for Frenchmen in this re- 
gion beyond Lake Michigan, that they had so long 
exploited for king, commerce, and the Church. 

Marquette, who succeeded Allouez at the Che- 
quamegon Bay mission of La Pointe, was a man of 
commanding enterprise, as a Jesuit missionary in 
New France had well need to be ; at the same time, 
he was one of the purest souls known to the glow- 
ing history of his order, and a preacher of un- 
doubted power and persuasiveness. Yet he won no 
greater ascendency over this polyglot flock than had 
his predecessor. " They turn Prayer to ridicule," 
he complains to the father superior, " and scarcely 
will they hear us speak of Christianity ; they are 
proud, and without intelligence," and he must fain 
content himself with baptizing the sick and dying, 
who have not the strength to oppose such proced- 
ure. 

In view of his future work, however, his time at 
La Pointe was well spent. Here he met tribesmen 
from the Illinois country, who brought him vague 
accounts of the Mississippi, and his letters to 
Jesuit headquarters in Quebec breathe deep yearn- 
ings to visit the great river of the south, to solve 
the puzzle of its course, and to carry to its nations 



50 WISCONSIN 

the gospel o£ the cross, "This discovery," he writes 
with the optimistic spirit of a born explorer, " will 
give us full knowledge either of the South Sea or 
of the Western Sea." * 

Marquette's proposal to his superior, to seek 
the Mississippi from Chequamegon Bay by means 
of the closely connecting waterways abounding in 
northwest Wisconsin, was not destined to bear 
fruit. In the spring of 1671, the Ottawa and 
Huron of La Pointe became embroiled in a serious 
quarrel with the Sioux encamped at the extreme 
western end of Lake Superior, and with their pas- 
tor precipitately fled eastward to escape the wrath 
with which they were threatened. The Ottawa 
found a home on Manitoulin Island, in the north- 
ern waters of Lake Huron. The Huron settled on 
the Straits of Mackinac, and with them Marquette 
willingly cast his fortunes, for this was the princi- 
pal pathway toward the Mississippi. 

A twelvemonth previous the Jesuits had estab- 
lished upon the turtle-shaped Island of Mackinac 
the modest mission of St. Ignace, the advantages 
of which are thus set forth by Dablon, father super- 
ior at Quebec, in the " Relation " of that year : 
" [The island] forms the key and the door, so to 
speak, for all the peoples of the South, as does the 

^ Marquette doubtless meant the Gulf of Mexico by the term 
" South Sea," although this was by most geographers of the time 
the name given to the Pacific Ocean, which is here called " West- 
ern Sea." 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 51 

Sault [de Ste. Marie] for those of the North; for 
in those regions there are only those two passages 
by water for very many Nations, who must seek 
one or the other of the two if they wish to visit the 
French settlements. This circumstance makes it 
very easy both to instruct these poor people when 
they pass, and to gain ready access to their coun- 
tries." The " Relation " of 1671-72 also refers to 
the island as " the great resort of all Nations go- 
ing to or coming from the North or the South." 

We have seen that from the earliest days of 
New France, Frenchmen had been thinking much 
of the Mississippi River and the road thither. 
Champlain had dreamed of reaching its banks, but 
after venturing as far as Lake Huron, was drawn 
homeward by colonial affairs. Nicolet closely ap- 
proached the goal. There is strong probability that 
Radisson and Groseilliers were upon the great river 
in the summer of 1655. Some have thought, but in 
our opinion on insufficient evidence, that La Salle 
traded for furs on the Mississippi as early as 1670. 
In that same year Fathers Dablon and Allouez 
were at the Indian village on the upper Fox, only 
a short distance from the Wisconsin — "a beau- 
tiful river," writes the latter in the " Relation " 
for 1669-70, "running southwest without any 
rapid. It leads to the great river called Messisipi, 
which is only six days' sail from here." The 
matter of definite exploration of the valley, so long 
the object of profound popular curiosity, was, 



52 WISCONSIN 

among a roving people like those of New France, 
merely a question of time and of the proper men. 

When Marquette, twenty-nine years of age, 
arrived at Quebec from France in 1666, he found 
there at the Jesuit house, in training for the priest- 
hood, Louis JoUiet, eight years his junior. The two 
became fast friends, but Jolliet appears soon to 
have abandoned his theological studies and entered 
the field of professional exploration, in which Nico- 
let had won such marked success. A man of ad- 
venturous spirit and fine physique, he, like Nicolet, 
rapidly acquired a considerable number of Indian 
dialects, and through arduous training became a 
master of woodcraft and aboriginal diplomacy. At 
the time when Marquette was sent by his superior 
to La Pointe mission, Jolliet was dispatched by 
the governor of New France to accompany, as inter- 
preter and Indian expert, an official party engaged 
in prospecting for copper in the Lake Superior re- 
gion. He remained for several years in the country 
of the upper Great Lakes, and we find him fre- 
quently referred to in official and Jesuit reports 
from that quarter as possessed of discretion, brav- 
ery, and unusual ability. His maps and statements 
concerning the Northwest did much to renew ec- 
clesiastical and official interest in the discovery of 
the Mississippi, concerning which he, like Mar- 
quette, assiduously collected information from many 
sources. 

Great was the delight of Marquette, at the lonely 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 53 

mission of St. Ignace, now removed to Point Ignace 
on the northern shore of Mackinac Straits, when, 
on the 8th of December, 1672, — the day of the 
feast of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, 
to whom the father had vowed to dedicate his long- 
proposed mission to " the Nations who dwell along 
the Missisipi River," — "Monsieur Jolly et arrived 
with orders from Monsieur the Count de frontenac, 
Our Governor, to accomplish This discovery with 
me. I was all the more delighted at This good 
news, since I saw my plans were about to be ac- 
complished." JoUiet was likewise the bearer of 
Marquette's marching orders from the father su- 
perior. Jesuit missionaries were under the strictest 
discipline, and might undertake no enterprise with- 
out specific authority from headquarters. 

The long northern winter was spent by the two 
comrades in careful preparations for the hazardous 
journey to which, as the result of their petitions, 
they had at last been assigned by their respective 
chiefs. The exciting news of the proposed expedi- 
tion spread quickly and widely among the tribes 
of the district. The intending explorers were visited 
by all manner of aboriginal delegations, eager to 
give of their meagre geographical knowledge, or 
more often to caution the adventurers asfainst un- 
duly risking their lives in this strange enterprise 
into unknown lands abounding in nameless horrors, 
and among strange peoples reputed to be in league 
with the spirits of evil. 



54 WISCONSIN 

Writes Marquette in his journal : 

We obtained all the Information that we could from 
the savages who had frequented these regions ; and we 
even traced from their reports a Map of the whole of 
that New country ; on it we indicated the rivers which 
we were to navigate, the names of the people and of the 
places through which we were to pass, the Course of the 
great River, and the direction we were to follow when 
we reached it.^ 

With the earliest canoes from the lower country, 
came young Father Philippe Pearson to succeed 
Marquette at St. Ignace. A few days later, upon 
the 17th of May, 1673, the epoch-making expedi- 
tion set forth — "Monsieur Jollyet and myself, 
with 5 men, in 2 Bark Canoes, fully resolved to do 
and suffer every thing for so glorious an Under- 
taking." Following the path broken by Nicolet and 
Radisson and Groseilliers, and no doubt by several 
other of their compatriots, the discoverers voyaged 
cautiously along the north shore of Lake Michigan 
and past the dangerous bluffs of Point Detour, 
crossed Death's Door with its swirling tide, and 
ascended Green Bay and Fox River to De Pere, 
where they no doubt tarried briefly at the Jesuit 
mission of St. Francis Xavier. Thence alternately 
portaging and paddling up the Fox, and stopping 

1 The original of what apparently is this map rests in the 
archives of St. Mary's College, Montreal. It is published in Jesuit 
Belations, vol. lix, where also will be found the full text of Mar- 
quette's journals of both his 1673 and his 1674 expeditions. 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 55 

for three days at the native village near Berlin, 
they found their way to the broad and picturesque 
Wisconsin, which was rapidly descended to its 
mouth, near the present Prairie du Chien. On the 
17th of June their canoes emerged from the flood- 
washed delta of the Wisconsin into the broad, 
sweeping current of the Mississippi, at this point 
nearly a mile in width. With " a Joy that I 
cannot Express," writes the gentle Marquette, 
they gazed on one of the noblest scenes in Amer- 
ica. At last they had found the object of their 
quest. 

However, their dangerous journey was still far 
from its end. After numerous adventures, many 
of them pleasing because of the fresh charm of the 
country, but now and then alarming from the hos- 
tile attitude of several of the native villages along 
the shores, the little flotilla reached the mouth of 
the Arkansas. It was now the middle of July. 
Heat and mosquitoes sadly vexed the adventurers ; 
the opposition of the tribesmen was intensifying 
as they proceeded southward ; it was at last evident 
that the river flowed neither into the Pacific nor 
into the waters of Virginia, but "into the florida 
or Mexican gulf;" reports of Spaniards on the 
lower reaches or along the gulf shore became daily 
more pronounced ; and '' Finally," writes the black- 
gowned journalist, " we had obtained all the infor- 
mation that could be desired in regard to this 
discovery." 



56 V/ISCONSIN 

Upon the seventeenth, two months after they 
had bidden farewell to Pearson at St. Ignace, and 
one after the discovery of the great river at Prairie 
du Chien, the explorers took formal leave of their 
treacherous Arkansas hosts and turned homeward. 
The canoes, heretofore gliding easily, now made 
slow progress against the strong descending cur- 
rent ; the mosquito pest was well-nigh unbearable ; 
malaria beset the wearied travelers, who were 
scorched by day and chilled by night fogs ; hostile 
savages often compelled them to sleep in their an- 
chored canoes ; camps had frequently to be made 
without fires that might betray their presence, — 
so that they were in a sorry plight by the time the 
Illinois River was reached. Learning that this route 
to Lake Michigan was shorter than the Fox- Wis- 
consin, they ascended the Illinois, where Marquette 
preached in the numerous native villages and Jol- 
liet discoursed bravely of the power of New France 
and the advantage of its fur-trade. Reaching either 
the Chicago or the Calumet River over a portage 
path that traversed the scarcely perceptible water- 
shed, the explorers descended to the great lake. 
Thenceforth they painfully worked their way for 
three hundred miles northward along the whitish 
clay bluffs lining the Wisconsin shore, crossed 
over to Green Bay by means of the Sturgeon Bay 
portage route, ^ and at the end of September were 
warmly welcomed by the Jesuit missionaries at De 

^ Now penetrated by a federal canal. 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 57 

Pere, to whose bouse Marquette had by this time 
been formally assigned. 

The party had been much enfeebled by the long 
and hazardous journey, and were pleased enough 
thus early to settle down in peace for the pro- 
tracted winter. The two leaders occupied them- 
selves with their respective reports and maps. 
Marquette's simple narrative was addressed to his 
superior, Father Dablon, at Quebec ; Jolliet's, 
doubtless more detailed, to his chief, the governor 
of New France. In the spring (1674) JoUiet, the 
stronger of the two, bade farewell to his still ail- 
ing colleague, and with their boatmen set forth in 
high spirits upon his long voyage homeward. He 
had successfully compassed the many dangers of 
lake navigation and those of the turbulent Ottawa, 
and was gayly shooting the great rapids at La 
Chine, above Montreal, when his canoe upset, his 
crew and his papers \yere lost in the tumultuous 
waters, and he barely escaped with his life. The 
poor fellow was in a sorry plight on his return to 
the diminutive capital of New France, with little 
to show of his great discovery. He was, however, 
promptly seen by Father Dablon, who managed to 
catch the mail for France with a hurried report of 
the trip,^ " put together after hearing him converse, 
while waiting for the relation, of which father Mar- 
quette is keeping a copy." 

In due time Marquette's narrative reached Da- 
1 Jesuit Relation for 1674. 



58 WISCONSIN 

bloii, doubtless by the hands of an Indian messenger 
descending the St. Lawrence in otie of the annual 
trading fleets to Quebec. It is this report that 
has come down to us as the only journal of the 
famous expedition, which accounts for the fact 
that Marquette's name has in history become much 
more intimately connected with the discovery than 
that of his almost forgotten companion. The good 
father, however, went to his grave quite uncon- 
scious of the fame that had been thrust upon him. 
In the brief life remaining to Marquette he could 
never have known of the sad fate of Jolliet's 
papers. Dablon's " interview " with the latter was 
not published in the " Relations " until the mis- ] 

sionary was dying in the land of the Illinois ; his t 

own priceless journal did not see print until six j 

years after he himself had passed away. j 

Marquette did not rally at St. Francis Xavier, ] 

to the extent he had expected. Fretting continu- ] 

ously with a desire to be again at work among the ; 

simple Illinois tribesmen, who had clamored for his 
return, the good father was obliged to remain thir- . 

teen months in enforced idleness. At last, consent ^ 

having arrived from his superior, he ventured forth \ 

at the close of the season, although still but a phys- ; 

ical wreck. I 

Starting from De Pere on the 25th of October i 

(1674), with two French servants, he experienced j 

a cold, stormy voyage of a month along the Wis- 
consin coast, and early in December entered Chi- 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 59 

cago River, " which was frozen to the depth of 
half a foot." His ailment, a chronic dysentery, re- 
turned in vigor, and he was obliged to pass the re- 
mainder of a peculiarly severe winter in a wretched 
cabin erected by his men, " near the portage, 2 
leagues up the river." In April, scarcely able to 
sit in his canoe, he nevertheless persisted in pene- 
trating to the great village of the Illinois, near the 
present city of Peoria, where " he was received as 
an angel from Heaven." But his disease increased 
in severity, soon impelling him to hurry back either 
to De Pere or Mackinac in order to obtain from his 
brethren the last sacrament. His servants carried 
him tenderly by way of the Chicago portage and 
down the east side of Lake Michigan, that the canoe 
might gain advantage of the north-setting current 
which sweeps that shore ; but the dying missionary 
finally yielded up his life on the 18th of April 
(1675), at their camp near the site of the modern 
Michigan town of Ludington, and was there buried. 
The following year a party of Mackinac Indians 
reverently visited the grave of their black-gown 
friend, and with native ceremonial removed his 
bones to St. Ignace. To-day these relics are di- 
vided between the old church at St. Ignace and 
the Jesuit university in Milwaukee, which latter is 
proud to bear his name. 

It is idle in our day to inquire to whom should 
be awarded the greatest credit for the discovery of 
the Mississippi, — De Soto in the South, or Radisson 



60 WISCONSIN 

or La Salle or the heroes of our present chapter, 
in the north. Nothing came of the De Soto ex- 
pedition ; it was as inconsequent as the landing 
of Leif, son of Eric, at the North American 
Vineland, nearly five centuries before the com- 
ing of Columbus. If Radisson's journal be rightly 
interpreted as indicating his early visitation to the 
Mississippi, that chance voyage was equally fruit- 
less for civilization. La Salle's possible priority of 
presence on the great river was far more signifi- 
cant than that of Radisson or De Soto ; but the 
claim in his behalf is based on the merest sur- 
mise. 

There is some reason to believe that an inquisi- 
tive Virginian traveler, Abraham Wood, may, pre- 
vious to 1670, have penetrated as far westward as 
the Mississippi — indeed, the story of early Eng- 
lish exploration in the trans- Alleghany has yet to 
be written ; but even if the tale be accepted, nothing 
came of Wood's exploit. 

Jolliet and Marquette went about their famous 
task unsuspecting possible European predecessors. 
So far as they knew, the region was a mysterious 
wilderness, untrodden by white men. Persistently 
and systematically they sought information concern- 
ing it, and proceeded upon their journey in the spirit 
and the manner of true explorers. They wrote their 
narratives with care, and prepared excellent maps 
for publication, and the announcement of their 
discovery at once resulted in the opening of the re- 



FRENCH EXPLORERS AND MISSIONARIES 61 

gion to commerce, missionary enterprise, and set- 
tlement. They were as much the real discoverers 
of the Mississippi as was Columbus of the New 
World. 



CHAPTER III 

FKENCH EXPLOITATION 

We have seen that Nicolet piloted the way to 
Wisconsin. Radisson and Groseilliers, and doubt- 
less many another adventurer now unknown, proved 
the capabilities of the fur-trade in the broad region 
westward of Lake Michigan. With that zealous 
fortitude that makes men martyrs, the Jesuit mis- 
sionaries here planted seed that was slow of growth 
and uncertain as to fruit, but through the medium 
of the much-thumbed " Relations " they familiar- 
ized Europeans with this heathen wilderness. Jol- 
liet and Marquette opened a highway through the 
land, and showed the Fox- Wisconsin route to be 
in many respects the most feasible path to the inter- 
ior of the continent. Their adventure practically 
closed the era of exploration ; the period of French 
occupation promptly followed. 

In June, 1671, two years before the departure 
of the expedition of discovery from Mackinac, 
Saint-Lusson, a political agent of New France, 
with much ceremony took possession at Sault Ste. 
Marie, in the name of King Louis, of the entire 
Western country. In the fashion of the day, his 
proces-verbal was broad enough in its terms to em- 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 63 

brace all lands " as well discovered as to be dis- 
covered, which are bounded on the one side by the 
Northern and Western Seas and on the other side 
by the South Sea including all its length or 
breadth." ^ In his train were several Jesuit mis- 
sionaries, including Dablon and Allouez ; but per- 
haps the most interesting character in this little 
company at the Sault was their guide and inter- 
preter, Nicolas Perrot. 

It is known that Perrot, following closely the 
footsteps of Radisson and Groseilliers, had wan- 
dered into Wisconsin as early as 1665, when but 
twenty-one years of age. As a fur-trader, he at- 
tained remarkable influence over the wild tribes, 
which power was frequently utilized by the Quebec 
government in winning over Northwest Indians 
to the acceptance of French exploitation of their 
country. Twenty years later (1685) he was ap- 
pointed French "commandant of the West;" 
doubtless, as was generally the case on the fron- 
tiers of New France, wholly maintaining himself 
and his small corps of twenty soldiers from the 
profits of his trade with the natives. 

Through the winter of 1685-86 we find Perrot 
quartered in a little log stockade on the eastern 
bank of the Mississippi, near the modern village of 
Trempealeau, exchanging Paris-made beads, brass 
and silver ornaments, and tools and arms of iron 
for the buffalo and other fur peltries brought to 
^ Text in Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. xi. 



64 WISCONSIN 

his gates by the bargain-loving Sioux. Others of 
his fortified trading-posts were Fort Perrot, on the 
Minnesota side of Lake Pepin, Fort Nicolas, in the 
outskirts of the Prairie du Chien of to-day, and 
one lower down the Mississippi to guard a lead 
mine near Galena, which he discovered and worked. 
The beautiful silver ostensorium which in 1686 he 
presented to the Jesuit mission at De Pere, has, 
after some curious adventures, at last found a rest- 
ing place in the museum of the Wisconsin Histori- 
cal Society at Madison, where it is treasured as 
probably the oldest historical relic in the trans- 
Alleghany, that bears upon it a contemporaneously 
engraved date. 

Perrot appears to have been a man of excellent 
character, of unusual bravery and enterprise, and 
to have displayed rare diplomatic capacity in treat- 
ing with the Indians of the Northwest; but he 
was, also, the victim of violent passions, and ruled 
his turbulent wards after the manner of an Asiatic 
despot. His haughty temper, while doubtless in 
general a source of strength to a man in his rude 
situation, sometimes brought him into trouble, and 
among his many thrilling adventures were not in- 
frequent attempts upon his life; more than once 
he narrowly escaped death by torture at the stake. 
In the closing year of the seventeenth century the 
uprising of the Fox Indians led, as we shall see, to 
the withdrawal of French garrisons from the West- 
ern posts, and Perrot returned to the lower country 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 65 

a poor man. His military expenses had far outrun his 
fur-trading profits, a not unusual experience among 
the captains of the great Louis who were serving 
him upon the far-away frontiers of North America. 

Another French adventurer whose name is 
closely linked with that of early Wisconsin was 
Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, one of the most 
remarkable characters in our Western history. In 
partnership with officials at Quebec and Montreal, 
he conducted a far-reaching but seldom profitable 
fur-trade with the savages of the interior, and in- 
cident to the extension of the bounds of that com- 
merce won lasting repute as an explorer. 

After some experience as a Jesuit novice in 
France, where he was born of a wealthy Rouen 
family, La Salle had come to Canada in 1666, 
when but twenty-three years of age. Befriended 
by Governor Frontenac, a man of lofty ambition 
but of kindly nature, young La Salle promptly 
entered upon the one field in New France that gave 
promise to a fellow of spirit, that of explorer and 
fur-trader. Hard study made him master of several 
of the difficult Indian dialects, and an expert in 
savage customs and methods. He was soon wander- 
ing widely upon hunting and prospecting trips, 
with both native and French companions. It has 
been claimed, but not proven, that in 1671 he was, 
earliest of known white men, at the Falls of the 
Ohio (Louisville), and about that time discovered 
the Mississippi. 



66 WISCONSIN 

In 1673 he first set out upon the several re- 
corded expeditions toward and in the Mississippi 
basin, that have made his name one of the most 
famous in American history. In that year, as 
Frontenac's representative and partner, he estab- 
lished the fur-trading post of Fort Frontenac 
(Kingston) at the outlet of Lake Ontario. After 
a voyage to France, seeking royal favor and en- 
couragement, we find him in 1676 strengthening 
this fort, and building vessels for trade upon the 
lake. The following year he was again in France, 
receiving from the king a patent of minor nobility 
and a license to conduct a far Western trade in 
buffalo wool and skins, as well as to build posts in 
the valley of the Mississippi, concerning which 
Jesuit reports of the adventures of Jolliet and 
Marquette had greatly quickened public interest. 
But in his operations in that wonderful land, 
"through which would seem that a passage to 
Mexico can be found," the Sieur de la Salle was 
cautioned not to involve the crown in expense, nor 
trade with tribes trafficking direct with the settle- 
ments on the lower St. Lawrence. Like Perrot, he 
was to recoup himself from his fur-trade monopoly 
in the region to be explored. 

Better than any royal license, however, was his 
acquisition of a lieutenant in the person of Henri de 
Tonty, a young Italian soldier of fortune, who had 
lost his right hand at the battle of Libisso, and 
thereafter wore one of metal, which he kept gloved. 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 67 

Tonty's was a bold, adventurous spirit, like that of 
his chief; but, unlike his cold, hard, and domineer- 
ing leader, who had few friends, the Italian was of 
a tactful, sunny temperament. Under the thousand 
trying circumstances incident to wilderness travel, 
he only of the two could hold their followers 
together. 

La Salle and Tonty arrived at Niagara in Janu- 
ary, 1679, with material, supplies, and crew for a 
ship to be constructed above the cataract, for the 
navigation of the upper lakes. In the first week of 
August the Griffon sailed, and in twenty days 
arrived at Mackinac, to the consternation of the 
free-traders assembled there, for La Salle's whole- 
sale and organized methods seemed to spell ruin to 
the calling of the coureurs de hols. At an island 
rendezvous in or near Green Bay the vessel found 
a rich cargo of peltries awaiting her, gathered by 
La Salle's buyers, who had preceded him to Wis- 
consin. Clearly he was here violating the terms of 
his agreement with the king, for the Ottawa and 
other tribes around the foot of Lake Michigan 
were certainly in the habit of trading direct to 
Montreal. However, the question was never raised; 
for soon thereafter the Griffon was, with her entire 
freightage, lost in a gale on the great lake. 

La Salle and Tonty having themselves left the 
vessel on its approach to Green Bay, it was many 
months before they heard of the disaster. With 
fourteen men, the former voyaged up Lake Michi- 



68 WISCONSIN 

gan along the Wisconsin shore, while Tonty led a 
like contingent by the east bank. The two parties, 
reuniting at St. Josephs River, descended to Illinois 
River by the Kankakee portage, and celebrated 
New Year's Day (1680) at the gfeat village of the 
Illinois on Peoria Lake, where Marquette had 
ministered six years before. 

Here Fort Crevecoeur was built, with Tonty in 
command, and late in February La Salle returned to 
Fort Frontenac for supplies to fit out a vessel for 
the exploration of the lower Mississippi. A few 
days before his departure he dispatched a small 
party to report upon the upper waters of that river. 
This branch expedition was headed by Michel 
Accau and his lieutenant, Antoine Augel, in their 
company being Father Louis Hennepin, a Francis- 
can friar, who was consumed by a most unchurchly 
appetite for roving and for wild adventure. It was 
customary in New France, as we have seen, for 
priests to accompany explorers, in order not only 
to meet their spiritual needs, but to instruct such 
heathen aborigines as might be encountered. Hen- 
nepin was not only the pastor but the journalist of 
the expedition ; indeed, this first Western enter- 
prise of La Salle is largely known to us through 
the medium of Hennepin's narrative. The lively 
but sadly braggart and often unveracious account 
of the friar's many remarkable experiences, which 
lost nothing in the telling, was published two years 
later in France, and became one of the most widely- 



•1 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 69 

read books of the day. Well it might ; for despite 
glaring inaccuracies it remains one of the most 
valuable, as it is one of the most entertaining, con- 
temporary records of travel and observation in 
seventeenth-century North America. 

Accau's party reached the Falls of St. Anthony, 
the site of the modern Minneapolis, some five hun- 
dred miles above the mouth of Illinois River. 
Taken prisoners by the Sioux, who objected to the 
intrusion, they were kindly treated by their captors ; 
but, as not infrequently was the case in Indian 
camps, food was sometimes so scarce that the 
Frenchmen were inadequately nourished. After 
extended wanderings in northwestern Wisconsin 
and northeastern Minnesota, they were rescued by 
Tonty's cousin, Daniel Greysolon Duluth, who, 
with a small band of followers, was then trading 
amons: the Sioux in behalf of Frontenac. Duluth 
accompanied the explorers down the Mississippi, 
and by way of the Fox-Wisconsin route to Macki- 
nac, where the Jesuits entertained them until 
spring, when they could proceed down the lakes to 
Niagara and Fort Frontenac. 

In a later work (1697), published after La 
Salle's death, Hennepin unblushingly claimed that 
his party — he always pretended to be the leader 
— had, during their sojourn on the Mississippi, 
not only explored its upper waters, but descended 
the great river to its mouth, thus preceding La 
Salle himself by two years. But this impossible 



70 WISCONSIN 

tale was soon discredited, as it should be, and Hen- 
nepin's last ten years were spent in neglect and 
obscurity. 

The gallant Tonty had an unfortunate experi- 
ence during the absence of his chief. Most of his 
men, corrupted by rival fur-traders, deserted dur- 
ing the spring and summer. When a large force of 
Iroquois raiders appeared before his new fort of 
St. Louis, on Starved Rock, a high cliff on the Illi- 
nois River, he had but four white companions. 
With these he retreated to Lake Michigan, de- 
scending along the Wisconsin coast to the Jesuit 
mission at De Pere, which was reached in Decem- 
ber. At the same time, La Salle, well stocked with 
supplies, was advancing up the Michigan coast to 
his lieutenant's relief, but missed him. On reach- 
ing the Illinois the leader found nothing but traces 
of disaster, and retired to his fort on the St. Josephs.^ 
The next spring (1681) he had news of his dis- 
tressed companions and rejoined them at Mackinac, 
whence the reunited party returned to their base at 
Fort Frontenac. 

In August, with credit now stretched to the ut- 
most, for his disasters had resulted in debts of 
enormous proportions, La Salle again ventured 
forth into the West, with Tonty and a party of 

1 La Salle's Fort Miami, built in 1679, was at the mouth of St. 
Josephs River, where it debouches into Lake Michigan. The later 
French and English fort on the St. Josephs was sixty miles up 
stream, near the present South Bend, Indiana, and guarded the 
portage of half a league to the Kankakee. 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 71 

fifty-two others. In two sections they reached the 
Illinois by both the Kankakee and Chicago port- 
ages, and entered the Mississippi on February 6 
(1682). On March 9, while among the Arkansas, 
— Jolliet and Marquette's southern limit, — the 
great adventurer formally took possession for his 
sovereign of the entire Mississippi basin, a cere- 
mony repeated with great solemnity on April 9 at 
one of the mouths of the Mississippi. 

But the lower reaches were found to be unhealth- 
ful, food was scarce, the Indians hostile, and for 
forty days La Salle lay ill with malarial fever. 
Once more the expedition dragged its way back to 
far-away Mackinac. With the coming of autumn, 
however, the commercial explorers were again on 
the march and descended to their old haunts on 
Illinois River, where, amid a population of six 
thousand natives, they for a year conducted a 
gainful trade in buffalo hides. 

But there had been a change in the political con- 
trol of New France. La Salle's fur-trade partner, 
Frontenac, was replaced as governor by La Barre, 
who disliked and sought to ruin the austere and 
ambitious fur-trader who dreamed of a great com- 
mercial empire in the West. When La Salle was 
on his way in the autumn of 1683 to visit, and if 
possible to propitiate, the new governor, he met 
along the east coast of Lake Michigan Chevalier 
de Baugis, who had been dispatched to seize La 
Salle's forts and succeed him as military command- 



72 , WISCONSIN 

ant in the Illinois. With more tact than he was 
accustomed to display, the latter sent by De Baugis 
a note to Tonty to yield gracefully, and soon La 
Barre's traders were monopolizing the district. 

On reaching Quebec, La Salle, paying slight at- 
tention to the governor, departed at once for France 
to lay his case before the throne. Hennepin's first 
book, with its glowing reports of Canada and the 
vast interior, was just then being eagerly read by 
court and people. The great explorer, freshly re- 
turned from the farthest wilds of that wonderful 
land, was everywhere welcomed, and found eager 
audiences. The king promptly ordered La Barre 
to restore to the adventurer his several forts, — 
Frontenac, St. Josephs, and St. Louis. The hero 
of the day was further authorized to found colonies 
throughout the broad tract then known as Louisi- 
ana, and to wield military control all the way from 
Lake Michigan to the Gulf of Mexico. To assist 
him in carrying out this imperial enterprise, the 
court sent with him four ships and four hundred 
men. 

Exultantly La Salle left Kochelle (July 24, 
1684), heading an expedition at last befitting his 
lofty ambition. But a bitter quarrel soon arose be- 
tween him and Beaujeu, his principal ship captain. 
The Spanish captured one of the vessels ; the other 
three, through lack of good charts, failed to find 
the mouth of the Mississippi and rendezvoused to 
the westward, in Matagorda Bay (January, 1685). 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 73 

Here one of the ships was soon wrecked. In mis- 
erable plight the leader landed his ill-equipped 
pioneers, most of their tools having been lost with 
the vessel, and built another Fort St. Louis. Beau- 
jeu now left the wretched colony to its fate, and 
sailed home to France in one of the two remaining 
ships ; later in the year, the last of the craft was 
lost in a wreck. 

The strength of the squalid and fever-stricken 
settlement, feeble at best, was soon wasted in expe- 
ditions through the neighboring forests and swamps, 
in vain search for the great river's mouth. Deser- 
tions were frequent, a mutinous spirit arose, disor- 
der was rampant. Early in January (1687), the 
commander and sixteen ragged, half-starved, and 
for the most part desperate followers, set out for 
Canada overland, leaving behind them about 
twenty men to garrison the little palisaded fort. 
On March 19, on Trinity River, La Salle, whose 
harsh and overbearing temper had made him bit- 
terly hated by the majority, was murdered by some 
of the disaffected, who fled into the wilderness, 
leaving his handful of friends to pursue their way 
as best they might. These eventually reached 
Starved Rock, whence the grieved and despairing 
Tonty had dispatched numerous toilsome expedi- 
tions to find the chief to whom he himself appears 
to have been passionately devoted. Outfitted by the 
lieutenant, the miserable refugees at last reached 
Mackinac and Quebec. Two years later Spanish ex- 



74 WISCONSIN 

plorers, coming overland from Mexico, discovered 
the ruins of Fort St. Louis on Matagorda Bay. 
Several of the garrison had been killed by Indians 
and the rest imprisoned ; these latter were promptly 
ransomed by the Spanish, thus closing one of the 
most tragic chapters in the checkered story of 
American exploration. 

We have alluded to the fortunate meeting be- 
tween Duluth, the cousin of Tonty, and Father 
Hennepin's exploring party, captive among the 
Sioux. Duluth was a picturesque personage in our 
history. Born about 1647, in a little village near 
Paris, he was in his youth a member of the Royal 
Guard, a command composed exclusively of gentle- 
men, and later won a captaincy in the marines, to 
which corps was committed the military protection 
of French colonies. Retiring from this service, on 
half pay, Duluth entered the broader field of the 
fur-trade, and in the autumn of 1678 left Montreal 
for the far West. For several years he wandered 
and trafficked among the Sioux, Assiniboin, and 
other tribes beyond Lake Superior. 

It was while thus roving that in June, 1680, he, 
with four men in his employ, ascended the Bois 
Brule from Lake Superior, and portaged over to 
Upper St. Croix Lake, the headwaters of St. Croix 
River. Arriving at the mouth of the latter, he heard 
of the French prisoners, and descending the Missis- 
sippi for some two hundred and forty miles vis- 
ited the camp of^the captors, there meeting Accau, 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 76 

Augel, and Hennepin. The friar he had possibly 
met in Holland, six years before, at the fierce bat- 
tle of Seneife, wherein Hennepin was an almoner 
and Duluth a squire to the Marquis de Lassay. The 
fur-trader's dominance over his savage customers 
was well evinced in his ability to secure the release 
of his countrymen, whom, as we have seen, he es- 
corted to Mackinac by way of the Fox-Wisconsin 
route. 

While at Mackinac, Duluth learned that he had 
incurred the enmity of officials on the lower St. 
Lawrence. He was accused of being a coureur de 
hols, and of heading a combination of nearly eight 
hundred free-traders roaming through the upper 
country. What was still worse, he was said to be 
trading with the English, who, from Albany as their 
commercial base, were now boldly operating along 
the Ohio River and its branches. By means of 
higher prices and better goods, they were attracting 
a large share of the native trade which New France 
deemed to be legally and morally hers. 

This news determined Duluth to go to France 
and have it out with the minister of the marine. 
He appears to have convinced this official that 
he was a regular trader, that he had at his own 
expense won the Indians over to favor French do- 
minion, and that up to this time his followers had 
been an insignificant handful. He returned to Can- 
ada with license to traffic among the Sioux by way 
of Wisconsin River, and to their country he at 



76 WISCONSIN 

once repaired ; although La Salle vainly protested 
that the Wisconsin was clearly within his own 
assigned territory, and might not properly be in- 
vaded by a rival merchant. 

In the first week of May, 1683, Duluth was again 
at La Baye (the Green Bay of our time), with 
thirty men, and valiantly helped to defend that 
place — apparently the mission stockade at De 
Pere — against an incursion of the Iroquois, just 
then raiding the tribesmen who had fled to Wiscon- 
sin from the neighborhood of Lake Huron. Thence 
proceeding to the north shore of Lake Superior, he 
built forts near Lake Nepigon and at the mouth 
of the Pigeon ; the latter being called Kaministi- 
quia, and afterwards serving as the eastern base of 
a long line of fortified places by way of Lake Win- 
nipeg and the Saskatchewan, collectively called the 
" Post of the Western Sea." By means of this cor- 
don, the French sought commercially to connect 
Lake Superior and the Pacific Ocean, overland: 
hoping thus to cut off interior trade from the Eng- 
lish Hudson's Bay Company, which strenuously 
claimed the "whole, entire, and only liberty of 
Trade and Traffick " in the vast northwestern wil- 
derness which the English then called "Rupert's 
Land." 

Three years later (1686) we find Duluth erect- 
ing a fort near Detroit, to bar the proposed en- 
trance of English traders into the upper lakes. 
Thereafter, he was prominently connected with 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 77 

various French military enterprises between De- 
troit and Montreal, several of them involving rare 
enterprise and daring. He died in 1709, the victim 
of diseases induced by prolonged hardships suf- 
fered in behalf of New France, no doubt well earn- 
ing the encomium of Governor Vaudreuil, who, 
in notifying the government at Versailles of the 
decease of this battered veteran of the frontier, 
declared that " He was a very honest man." 

Another Frenchman to leave his mark on the 
pages of Wisconsin history was Pierre Charles le 
Sueur. Coming from France to Canada in his 
youth, he also joined the ranks of the Western fur- 
trade adventurers. As early as 1G83, ten years 
after Jolliet and Marquette, we hear of his jour- 
neying from Mackinac to the Mississippi over the 
Fox-Wisconsin route, ascending to St. Anthony's 
Falls, whither Hennepin had preceded him by 
three years, and trafficking with the Sioux about 
the headwaters of the Mississippi. 

In 1689 Le Sueur, then prominent among the 
licensed traders of the Northwest, and evidently a 
man of talent and unusual enterprise, was one of 
the witnesses to Perrot's act of taking possession 
for France of the region of the upper Mississippi, 
on Lake Pepin. Four years later (1693), by order 
of Governor Frontenac, he built a stockaded fort 
on Madelaine Island, in Chequamegon Bay, over- 
looking the site of Radisson's landfall of twenty- 
four years previous, and another long fortress on 



78 WISCONSIN 

an island in the Mississippi, some eight miles below 
the month of the St. Croix. The purpose of these 
posts was to keep open for French trade, as against 
possible raids by the now rebellious Fox Indians, 
the Bois Brule-St. Croix route, Duluth's favorite 
highway between Lake Superior and the great 
river. This Mississippi River fort soon became an 
important rendezvous for tribesmen having furs to 
offer for barter, and is alluded to by the Jesuit his- 
torian Charlevoix as *' a centre of commerce for 
the Western parts, and many French of Canada 
pass the winter here, because it is a good country 
for hunting." 

Thus far, Le Sueur had been strong in favor 
with Frontenac, but in time their commercial in- 
terests clashed, and friction naturally arose. In 
1697 the former had obtained from the ministry 
permission to work certain lead mines and colored 
earths on the Mississippi and copper deposits on 
Lake Superior, which he had discovered. Delay in 
the execution of his project, however, resulted 
from the capture by an English fleet of the vessel 
on which he was returning to New France, and he 
was imprisoned in England until the conclusion of 
King William's War, later in the year. When re- 
leased, he obtained a new royal commission (1698) 
and again started for Canada. Frontenac, then all- 
powerful, now represented to the court that these 
mines were too far away from the lower St. Law- 
rence to be of any use to Canada ; that Le Sueur 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 79 

could support himself in that distant country only- 
through a license to trade in beaver skins, there 
being no small game ; and if he did this it would 
exclude others from that profitable traffic. "I 
think," slyly suggests the governor to the minister 
of marine, " that the only mines he seeks in those 
regions are mines of beaver skins." 

Thus repulsed by the Canadian authorities, Le 
Sueur again went to France and obtained fresh 
permission from the court to go out to America ; 
this time to join his gallant relative, Iberville, who, 
in February, 1699, had founded at Biloxi the new 
colony of Louisiana, which La Salle had failed to 
establish. 

Le Sueur arrived in Louisiana during the first 
week of December. At the head of twenty-nine pro- 
spectors and miners he was promptly dispatched 
up the Mississippi by Iberville, to investigate more 
fully the deposits of metal and colored earths con- 
cerning which he had reported. After visiting 
mines in Illinois, near the present Galena, and 
having numerous conferences with the Indians, the 
adventurers passed the mouth of Wisconsin River 
on the first of September (1700). Later they as- 
cended to the Falls of St. Anthony and built a 
wintering fort on Blue River, a branch of the Min- 
nesota, a league above the present town of Man- 
kato. Here they conducted a profitable fur-trade 
with the Sioux, and discovered what Le Sueur took 
to be a copper deposit. Some three thousand 



80 WISCONSIN 

pounds of this supposed ore were transported in 
their slender craft to Biloxi, which was reached in 
February, 1702. But, like the miners at James- 
town colony, in the previous century, Le Sueur 
was doomed to disappointment ; for on arrival in 
France the cargo that had cost so much to procure 
proved to be but worthless greensand. This prac- 
tically closed the career of the now discredited Le 
Sueur ; eight years later he died, while crossing the 
ocean. However, the lead deposits discovered by 
him in northwestern Illinois, and probably in 
southwestern Wisconsin and in adjacent districts 
to the west of the Mississippi, continued to be 
worked at intervals throughout the French regime, 
being of the highest importance to the fur-trade of 
the entire Mississippi basin ; for without bullets 
the firearms of the white men were of small avail. 
Conditions of life under the French regime 
upon the rude frontiers of Canada and Louisiana 
— and we shall see that southwestern Wisconsin 
was, for a time, considered a part of the latter pro- 
vince — were such as to foster strong personalities. 
Conspicuous among them was Louis-Armand de 
Lom d'Arce, known to history as Baron de Lahon- 
tan. His father was a famous French engineer in 
Gascony, whose once ample fortunes had, about the 
time of his son's birth (1666), been wasted through 
legal strife, so that the boy inherited only a title 
and a shattered estate. When but seventeen years 
of age he went out to Canada as a petty officer in 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 81 ] 



a company of the marine corps sent from France 
to chastise the turbulent Iroquois. Engaged in two 
rather exciting Iroquois campaigns, the young Gas- 
con acquired a close knowledge of Indian languages 
and customs, and won repute as a fellow of spirit. 
Despite his caustic temper and his cordial hatred 
of the priests, — he was an avowed agnostic, — :he 
came to be regarded as a valuable man-at-arms, 
particularly when engaged upon somewhat desper- 
ate enterprises. At heart he was a wanderer, as 
well as a cynic, and the ready victim of ennui. 

Dispatched in 1687 to command the little stock- 
ade of Fort St. Joseph, "at the strait of Lakes 
Huron and Erie," — one of Duluth's chain of forts, 
— Lahontan went out in the company of Duluth and 
Tonty, who tarried with him a few days at his new 
station, the two cousins then disappearing into the 
farthest West. For a year the restless commandant, 
paying little heed to his post, roamed through the 
region of Mackinac and Sault Ste. Marie, ostensibly 
in search of corn for his garrison, among the In- 
dians, but really in quest of adventure. Late in 
the summer of 1688 he declared St. Joseph unten- 
able because of Iroquois encroachment, and aban- 
doning the fort retreated with his detachment to 
Mackinac. 

From here, so he claimed in after years, he made, 
in the autumn and winter following, an extended 
journey with his men and some' Indian allies west- 
ward to Green Bay, over the Fox- Wisconsin route 



82 WISCONSIN 

to the Mississippi, and a long distance up an alleged 
westerly affluent of the Mississippi, which he called 
Kiver Long. On this apocryphal river, which cor- 
responds to no stream on the maps of to-day^ 
Lahontan claims to have visited the wonderful na- 
tions of Eokoros, Esanapes, and Gnacsitares, from 
whom he learned of still other strange tribes be- 
yond, and of a river flowing westward into a large 
salt lake. That he actually was at Green Bay and 
on Fox River, there seems no reason to doubt; 
but relative to the Wisconsin and the country west- 
ward, his published account is vague, and evidently 
based on second-hand information. 

Leaving these nations of the West, whose idyl- 
lic life he describes in glowing terms, which may 
have given a hint to Swift for " Gulliver's Travels," 
Lahontan reports that he and his. companions de- 
scended to the Mississippi, reached Lake Michigan 
by way of the Illinois-Chicago route, and returned 
to Mackinac ; whence — and this is established his- 
tory — the commandant, in the company of some 
Ottawa savages, proceeded to Montreal in canoes, 
by way of Ottawa River. The following autumn 
(1690) his friend Frontenac sent him to France, 
with dispatches reporting the withdrawal of the 
discomfited English from the St. Lawrence. Two 
years later he was again ordered to France, to pre- 
sent at Versailles in person a sagacious plan of his 
own invention, for defending the upper-lake region 
from the Iroquois. His vessel stopping at New- 



FRENCH EXPLOITATION 83 

foundland en route, he was conspicuous in repuls- 
ing a British naval attack on Plaisance, and once 
more was the bearer of welcome news to the min- 
istry. 

Overlooking his cherished scheme for guarding 
the upper country, the court ordered him back to 
Newfoundland as lieutenant of the king for that 
island and Acadia, a highly honorable but to him 
distasteful task ; for his heart was in the free, rov- 
ing life of the Western frontier. At Plaisance he 
quarreled with the governor, De Brouillon, who 
seems to have been almost insanely jealous of the 
young lieutenant who had been thrust upon him. 
Pretending to be in danger of his life, the latter 
fled in a fishing vessel to Portugal, and was there- 
after an exile from France, for his government 
would not countenance this desertion of a post of 
duty. 

In 1703 the poor fugitive, beset by ill fortune, 
drifted between Portugal, Holland, Germany, and 
England, and published his "Voyages to North 
America." It was a racy work of travel and philo- 
sophical reflection, filled to the brim with well-told, 
stirring adventures among a people and in a land 
concerning which there was then universal curi- 
osity ; it abounded, also, in satirical references to the 
governments and priests of Europe, and throughout 
breathed the fierce spirit of a social democrat and 
religious agnostic. The vogue of this heterodox but 
fascinating publication was immediate and wide- 



84 WISCONSIN 

spread ; its various editions in several European 
languages must, if properly managed, soon have 
replenished his slender purse. Dying about 1715, 
the closing years of this unfortunate adventurer 
were marked by ill health and popular neglect, 
save that a few choice spirits, like the philosopher 
Leibnitz, at Hanover, held him in high esteem. 

It has long been the fashion for historians to 
condemn Lahontan's book as a tissue of falsities ; 
but with the one exception of his fanciful account 
of the country and people of the River Long — 
which he seems to have introduced as a medium 
for lampooning the European civilization of his 
time — the " Voyages" constitutes one of the most 
valuable contemporary descriptions of the North 
American wilderness in the later decades of the 
seventeenth century ; for this reason, deserving far 
better treatment than it has been accorded. Further, 
as laying bare to us the heart and motives of one 
of the most gallant and picturesque of early Ameri- 
can adventurers, it is a human document of the 
greatest value. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE FOX WARS AND THE FALL OF NEW FRANCE 

In their exploitation of Wisconsin, through which 
lay diagonally the favorite Fox- Wisconsin trade 
route between the upper Great Lakes and the 
upper waters of the Mississippi, it must not be 
supposed that the French were meeting with no 
aboriginal opposition. Instead, Fox Indians long 
pestered commercial operations by the Canadians ; 
in the end their enmity brought about a condition 
of affairs that did much to disrupt French do- 
minion over the continental interior. 

The royal charters of English colonies on the 
Atlantic coast, in the easy land-grabbing temper 
of European monarchs of that time, carried their 
bounds indefinitely westward. At first, however, 
Englishmen, busy in settling the coastal plain, 
cared little for the hinterland, which was not yet 
needed. Meanwhile, the adventurous French, push- 
ing their inquiring way up the Ottawa, early reached 
the upper Great Lakes. We have seen Cham plain's 
commercial agent, Nicolet, setting foot in Wiscon- 
sin and learning of the great Mississippi, at a time 
when the Mayflower child was but a lad of four- 
teen ; Radisson, early exploring the Lake Superior 



86 WISCONSIN 

region ; Saint-Lusson, Perrot, and La Salle, by su- 
preme right of discovery, each in his turn, for- 
mally taking possession of the entire Mississippi 
basin for the king of France ; eJoUiet and Mar- 
quette, Duluth, Hennepin, and Le Sueur exploring 
vast areas heretofore unknown to Europeans ; Jesuit 
missionaries building bark chapels and rearing 
huge log crosses in the widely-scattered villages of 
the tribesmen ; fur-traders ranging everywhere to 
the west of the mountains; military commandants 
building cordons of log posts along vast stretches 
of connecting lakes and rivers ; and even mines of 
lead and copper being worked in the name of 
France. 

Not only in Canada: but with the coming of 
Iberville there was founded the southern province 
of Louisiana, which, joining hands with New France 
on the north, now claimed French mastery over the 
whole of the trans- Alleghany. And it seemed in all 
fairness, despite paper claims by the English, to 
belong to the great Louis, by virtue of both dis- 
covery and occupation. His ambitious scheme of 
North American empire needed for its validity, 
however, in that predatory age, the backing of 
power ; and France in America was lamentably 
weak. The entire population of New France was 
at the time of King William's War (1689-97) 
not greater than twelve thousand, whereas New 
England and New York alone supported a hundred 
thousand inhabitants — although it must be said 



FOX WARS AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 87 

that the English colonists were torn by dissen- 
sions and their militia system lacked organization; 
whereas New France possessed in her hardy pea- 
santry a well-trained fighting corps that might 
readily be mobilized. 

But Quebec and New Orleans were separated 
by a vast wilderness, only laboriously to be trav- 
ersed by canoes and batteaux ; the little waterside 
stockades were for the most part days distant from 
each other, and looked more formidable on the 
map than in reality ; much dependence was placed 
on Indian support, but in need the savages often 
proved but fair weather allies. Moreover, the offi- 
cials of New France and Louisiana were often at 
loggerheads, with conflicting trade and military 
interests, and with ill-defined bounds to their re- 
spective provinces. For a time, it was claimed that 
Louisiana extended northward to the mouth of the 
Wisconsin ; at others, New France governed not 
only all of Wisconsin, but the whole of the Illinois 
country. Almost universal official corruption, also, 
was a besetting weakness in the over-sea domin- 
ions of the king ; and this was encouraged by the 
penurious folly, long persisted in, of obliging ex- 
plorers and military commandants to recoup them- 
selves from the fur-trade of their several districts. 
Opposition to the exacting fur-trade monopoly 
bred hundreds of free-traders, who lawlessly roamed 
the farthest streams and forests with bands of half- 
savage retainers ; seeking better prices and cheaper 



88 WISCONSIN 

i 

goods, these rovers oftentimes carried peltries to 

thrifty English merchants operating from either : 
Albany or Hudson Bay, whose commerce with 

Western savages it was the policy of France to i 

repress at every hazard. i 

Plymouth was about sixty years old before '' 
Americans on the seaboard, slowly spreading into j 
the western uplands, began to bestir themselves \ 
relative to their claims beyond the AUeghanies. 
In 1686 Governor Denonville of New France re- \ 
ported to Versailles that New York was displaying j 
" pretensions which extend no less than from the i 
lakes, inclusive, to the South Sea [Pacific] ; " \ 
and that traders from that province had already : 
penetrated to Mackinac to purchase furs from ; 
" our Outawas and Huron Indians, who, received , 
them cordially on account of the bargains they i 
gave." But Denonville's plea that such irregu- 
larities should harshly be checked, was vain. As i 
usual, Versailles waited. i 

During the next thirty years English explorers ': 

and traders, with Wajiderlust at last strongly devel- | 

oped within them, advanced boldly through the j 

trans- Alleghany, as far south as the Creek tribes, > 
all through the Ohio basin, and even to the upper 

lakes. Duluth's strongholds could not stem their ■ 

progress. In 1721 Governor Keith of Pennsyl- i 

vania desired the lords of trade at London to j 

" fortify the passes on the back of Virginia," also j 

to build forts upon the Great Lakes, in order to I 



FOX WARS AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 89 

" interrupt the French communication from Quebec 
to the River Mississippi." Official England would 
not hurry, however; she, also, played a waiting 
game. In duQ time, of growing strength came 
action, and France was compelled to release her 
weak hold upon the transmontane hinterland that 
American borderers to the east of the range, eager 
for new pastures as well as for trade with the In- 
dians, had now come to demand as their heritage 
under the royal charters. 

In this long and glowing struggle for racial 
supremacy on the North American continent, Wis- 
consin waterways and Wisconsin Indians played a 
significant part. It has been shown that French 
supremacy could not permanently exist in the in- 
terior of the continent without free communication 
by boat between the divergent drainage systems of 
the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Only 
by this means might New France and Louisiana 
be kept in touch, and their commercial and mili- 
tary expeditions maintained from the bases of 
Quebec, Montreal, and New Orleans. The Fox- 
Wisconsin trade route being early recognized as 
in many respects the most feasible connection be- 
tween the two systems, Wisconsin was the keystone 
of the arch of French occupation, and thus essential 
to the integrity of the plan. Interruption of this 
highly strategic path to the Mississippi was bound 
to weaken the fabric by forcing Frenchmen to 
attempt other and less' satisfactory portages — 



90 WISCONSIN 

from the lower lakes over into the Ohio, from 
Lake Michigan to the Illinois, or from Lake Su- 
perior to the upper Mississippi. 

It is probable that the Fox Indians, then in con- 
trol of the Fox River of Wisconsin, once dwelt in 
the valley of the St. Lawrence, but from various 
economic reasons slowly drifted westward together 
with other Algonquian peoples. We first hear of 
them, in historic times, in lower Michigan ; but by 
1665 Father Allouez met Foxes on Lake Superior, 
whither they had, like so many of their linguistic 
family, retreated before the advancing scourge of 
the Iroquois. But in fleeing to the protection of our 
inland lakes and rivers they had lost nothing of 
their independent, warlike temper. French traders 
and missionaries found them haughty, ungovern- 
able, vengeful, and of stronger fibre than their 
neighbors. 

Forest merchants of any race are quite apt to 
include men of vicious temperament. From a com- 
bination of untoward incidents the Foxes came bit- 
terly to detest Frenchmen of this type, almost the 
only whites of their acquaintance. Moreover, these 
tribesmen were almost continually embroiled with 
the Sioux of the West, who also were born fight- 
ers. Frenchmen passing up Fox River, so called 
because the seat of the Foxes, were trafficking with 
the Sioux and carrying to the latter firearms which 
were being used against Fox warriors. It is small 
wonder, as the culmination of long-continued fric- 



FOX WARS AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 91 

tion, that the Foxes sought at first to interrupt the 
trade of the obnoxious French, by levying toll ; 
next, to close to the latter the gateway between East 
and West, of which they held the key ; then to harry 
the Chippewa, Ottawa, and other tribes remaining 
in tlie French interest, and in time boldly to hold 
council with the French-hating Iroquois. 

Duluth had contrived to keep these fiery savages 
on Fox River in some measure of control. The 
astute Perrot attained a considerable mastery over 
them. Nevertheless, the Jesuit mission at De Pere 
was burned to the ground in 1687, causing the 
black-gowns to retreat to Mackinac, and towards 
the close of the century the Fox- Wisconsin water- 
way became unsafe even for armed traders. It was 
for this reason that Le Sueur had been ordered 
(1693) to keep open Duluth's old route between 
Lake Superior and the Mississippi, via the Bois 
Brule and the St. Croix. 

With the death of Frontenac (1698), who had 
kept a strong hold upon the outlying military posts 
of New France, there came a period of govern- 
mental weakness, during which garrisons on the 
upper lakes were withdrawn. Emboldened by lax- 
ness, the Foxes carried matters with a high hand. 
In 1699, for instance. Father Saint-Cosme, a Sul- 
pician missionary bound for the Illinois, found the 
Fox- Wisconsin closed to him, and reported much 
plundering of such French traders as had been 
allowed to pass through. He was compelled to pro- 



92 WISCONSIN 

ceed with his little flotilla of canoes southward by 
the Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan, stopping 
among the Potawatomi, probably at the site of 
the present Sheboygan, and visiting a considerable 
population of Mascoutin, Foxes, and Potawatomi 
on the shores of Milwaukee Bay. His journey was 
continued over the Chicago portage. 

In the year of Saint-Cosme's adventure, orders 
were issued from Versailles to establish a fort at 
Detroit, under Antoine la Mothe, Sieur de Cadillac, 
its purpose being the familiar one, to prevent the 
Indian trade of the upper lakes from being won 
by Englishmen, whose allies were the dreaded Iro- 
quois. It was just then a feature of French policy 
to concentrate the Western Indians in large num- 
bers at Detroit, where they might be under sur- 
veillance and their trade confined to the French. 
At first the Foxes refused to go, but finally a large 
body of them yielded to continued solicitations 
(1710), and after a long march overland from 
Wisconsin planted themselves in a rather defiant 
mood before the gates of the little Michigan for- 
tress. But Cadillac had by this time gone to be gov- 
ernor of Louisiana ; his successor, Dubuisson, repre- 
sented a different governmental policy, and was 
much annoyed by the turbulent strangers, whom 
he invited to return to Wisconsin — a wish con- 
verted into a command by Governor Vaudreuil. 
In the early months of 1712 the unheeding Foxes, 
now strongly fortified, were set upon by the com- 



FOX WARS AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 93 

bined Indians of several tribes, aided by the French, 
and in the course of nearly three weeks of active 
hostilities the greater part of the Wisconsin visitors 
suffered slaughter. 

However, there were still many of their kind 
remaining in the forests of Wisconsin, and with 
much skill these organized a confederacy of neigh- 
boring tribes, which soon inaugurated a reign of 
terror for the French from Mackinac to the Mis- 
sissippi. In 1715 Marchand de Lignery was sent 
out with an expedition designed to operate in two 
columns against La Baye. But the attempt was 
mismanaged, and a failure. It was followed next 
year by a more formidable party under La Porte 
de Louvigny, starting from Montreal and gather- 
ing strength from whites and reds as it proceeded 
up the lakes, overawing the Iroquois on the way. 
Composed at last of eight hundred men, the column 
worked its toilsome way up and around the rapids 
of the lower Fox River, and found the Foxes in- 
trenched near Petit Lake Butte des Morts. Lou- 
vigny's two small cannon and a grenade-mortar 
had slight effect on the moated palisade of the 
savages, who defended themselves with much mili- 
tary skill, and finally secured quite favorable terms 
of surrender ; practically buying themselves off 
for the time, with the opportunities for a profitable 
trade in beaver skins, which they afforded the 
French invaders. 

The only lasting result for French arms was the 



94 WISCONSIN 

establishment at La Baye (in 1717) of the first 
permanent fort at that early outpost of New France. 
No doubt the Jesuit mission at De Pere was sur- 
rounded by the usual palisade for the protection 
of the little company of whites against marauding 
tribesmen. It is fair to presume, however, that 
the more formidable fortification now erected was 
placed at some point lower down the Fox ; probably 
on or at least near the west side site, a half league 
above the river mouth, whereon we know that in 
later days were built successive outposts of France, 
Great Britain, and the United States. 

No sooner had the thrifty Louvigny withdrawn 
than the neighborhood confederacy rapidly grew 
into a widespread aboriginal intrigue against 
French domination, which seems to have extended 
as far as the Chickasaw on the south and included 
the Sioux and Omaha of the trans-Mississippi 
plains ; but the Illinois remained true to their 
French allegiance. The Sioux alliance with the 
crafty Foxes was particularly distressing to the 
officials of New France, for the trade of the former 
was of the greatest importance, and they held the 
Mississippi and the inland routes westward. Nu- 
merous overtures were made to them through the 
post on Chequamegon Bay, but for a long time 
without success. 

The possibility of finding a water route through 
the American continent, by which Europe might 
be in close touch with eastern Asia, excited the 



FOX WARS AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 95 

ambition of every New World explorer from Co- 
lumbus until well along in the eigliteenth century. 
In 1720 the Jesuit historian and traveler, Father 
Pierre Frangois Xavier de Charlevoix, came to 
New France to prospect for a suitable trade route 
to the Pacific. He visited Wisconsin and the Illi- 
nois, and made to the government at Versailles 
two suggestions : first, an expedition up the Mis- 
souri, thence to follow some westering waterway 
to the ocean — the scheme which Lewis and Clark 
realized eighty-five years later ; second, to estab- 
lish a line of fur-trade and missionary posts among 
the Sioux, and thus gradually to creep into and 
across the interior. 

In accordance with this last proposition there 
was constructed (1727) Fort Beauharnois, on the 
Minnesota side of Lake Pepin, with Rene Boucher 
de la Perri^re in charge, and the Jesuits Guignas 
and De Gonnor to look after the missionary field. 
But a fresh uprising of the Foxes threatened to 
cut these men off from their base on the St. Law- 
rence, and the post was soon abandoned — so also 
the entire project for reaching western tidewater 
by way of the trans-Mississippi plains. 

Throughout the protracted troubles with the 
Foxes, Western officials of New France did not 
appear averse to Fox raids on the Illinois, thus de- 
stroying the fur-trade of upper Louisiana, so long 
as their own beaver traffic at Detroit, Mackinac, 
and La Baye was undisturbed. Royal commands 



96 WISCONSIN 

were issued in 1724, sharply directing that such 
raids be punished ; but without effect until four 
years later, when Lignery, then considered the 
most competent of the frontier officers, appeared 
on Fox River with a considerable convoy, found 
that the Foxes had retreated before him, burned 
their villages and cornfields, and on his return 
destroyed La Baye fort as no longer tenable — a 
singularly futile expedition, in which Lignery has 
been suspected of bad faith. 

A new officer was then (1729) sent to the coun- 
try of the Foxes, Pierre Paul la Perriere, Sieur 
Marin, who soon displayed energetic ability, and 
two years later rebuilt the stockade at La Baye. 
The allies of the Foxes were now falling away, for 
Indian conspiracies have seldom been of long dura- 
tion, and this last was displaying undoubted signs of 
weakness. Soon after Marin's arrival, a large body 
of the unfortunate tribesmen appear to have at- 
tempted an escape to the Iroquois in the east, by 
way of northern Illinois and Michigan. But they 
were overtaken south of Lake Michigan, by hastily 
summoned French commands from St. Josephs, 
Miami, and the Illinois, and put to rout with great 
loss of life. 

In the winter of 1731-32, a band of mission 
Indians from Canada were allowed to proceed to 
Wisconsin and slaughter no less than three hun- 
dred of the miserable remnant of the Foxes, who 
by this time seem to have completely lost their 



FOX WARS AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 97 

allies. Kiala, head chief of the distracted nation, 
and evidently a man of unusual ability among 
them, now appeared at La Baye and freely offered 
his life that the remainder of his people might be 
spared. He might have saved himself the sacrifice ; 
for De Villiers, now in command, triumphantly 
carried the poor headman to Montreal, whence he 
was transported to Martinique, where this once 
proud Demosthenes of the far northern forests 
became one of a chain-gang and soon fell a miser- 
able victim to unaccustomed labor under a tropical 
sky. 

It was thought that at last the Foxes had been 
brought to their knees. Disregarding the com- 
pact with Kiala, their complete extermination was 
promply ordered from headquarters in Montreal. 
But other tribes began to pity the wear}^ Foxes 
and to see in their fate a presage of their own. 
Their kinsmen and neighbors the Sauk, in par- 
ticular, harbored some of the fugitives. Upon De 
Villiers going among the former to ask that these 
be surrendered to the vengeance of the French, he 
and his youngest son were killed ; the brother pur- 
sued the murderers and fought them for an entire 
day at their village near Lake Petit Butte des 
Morts, with heavy losses on both sides. Thereafter 
Sauk and Foxes, deserting the valley of the Fox, 
were as one nation; fresh allies sympathetically 
came to them from the West, and the fugitives 
took their stand in the lead-mine district of south- 



98 WISCONSIN 

west Wisconsin, along Rock River, and in eastern 
Iowa. Their prestige, however, was never fully re- 
gained. 

Henceforth Frenchmen had free passage over 
the Fox- Wisconsin route, although there continued 
until 1750 to be more or less serious trouble with 
the recalcitrants, marked by the plunder and mur- 
der of traders within their country, and now and 
then a flickering flame of outright rebellion. The 
details we have not here space to follow, although 
they are often of much interest.^ 

A tragedy of another sort attaches itself to La 
Baye of this period. During the winter of 1749-50 
the commandant of the fort, young Lieutenant 
Pierre Mathurin, the Sieur Millon, who in 1744 
had served as an ensign at Crown Point, was out 
alone in a canoe on Green Bay and lost his life in 
a squall. 

By 1750, as a result of prompter and more effi- 
cient punitive expeditions from Mackinac, La 
Baye, and the several forts on the upper Missis- 
sippi and in the Illinois, something like peace was 
restored. Occasionally thereafter we find Sauk 
and Foxes arrayed, with other large bodies of Wis- 
consin Indians, under the French standard, in 
expeditions against English borderers and their 
Indian allies. Under the skillful command of 
young Charles Michel Langlade of Mackinac, by 

^ See L. P. Kellogg', " The Fox Indians during the French 
Regime," in Wis. Hist. Soe. Proceedings, 1907. 



FOX WARS AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 99 

this time famous throughout the West as both 
fur-trader and officer in the French militia, Sauk 
and Foxes joined with their neighbors in many a 
fierce foray, from Pickawillany (1752) to the death 
struggles before Quebec and Montreal (1759-60). 

To the Western military officials of New France, 
the cessation of the prolonged and vexatious Fox 
War brought a sense of relief, and probably they 
looked forward to a long term of security. With 
the Fox-Wisconsin route open, the fur-trade at La 
Baye post once more became extremely profitable. 
As was the fashion in New France, Marin and his 
colleagues promptly proceeded to feather their own 
nests through the double medium of private trade 
and official thievery. No wonder Marin compla- 
cently declared that " peace is more profitable than 
war." In 1753, in token of his military efficiency, 
he was ordered to the Ohio to superintend the 
building of a chain of forts designed to restrain 
the rising tide of English exploitation of the West. 
Upon his retirement from La Baye, the post was 
leased to Francois de Rigaud, a brother of Gov- 
ernor Vaudreuil, who, at an enormous advance, 
promptly re-leased it to a company of traders. 

In 1757, Captain Bougainville, aide-de-camp to 
General Montcalm, made a detailed report on the 
military status and resources of New France, in 
which he alluded to La Baye as " an established 
post. It is farmed for nine thousand francs, all at 
the cost of the lessee. The commandant (Control, 



100 WISCONSIN 

lieutenant) is an officer interested in the lease and 
who runs it for his own profit and that of his asso- 
ciates. He has two thousand francs of gratifica- 
tion." The Indians who assemble at the post to 
trade are the Sauk, Foxes, Winnebago, Mascoutin, 
Kickapoo, and the Sioux of the prairies and lakes. 
" There come from there," continues Bougainville, 
" in an ordinary year, five to six hundred pack- 
ages " of furs.^ Two years later (1759), for the 
family were thrifty, Rigaud obtained a life grant 
of the revenues of this profitable enterprise, which 
in the same season was advantageously leased to 
two merchant adventurers named Sieur Jacques 
Giasson and Ignace Hubert, whose compensation 
was to be a third of the profits. 

The powers of New France were tested to their 
utmost in the seven years' titanic struggle for the 
mastery of our continental interior, which opened 
in 1754. In Acadia, along the St. Lawrence, and 
upon the back of the English frontier settlements 
of Pennsylvania and Virginia, the French and In- 
dian War waged hottest. Wisconsin fur-traders, 
with following of half-breeds and savages from 
their several forest neighborhoods, hurried to the 
front and did effective service in a cause predes- 
tined to fail. 

But the upper country itself again fell Into neg- 
lect. The cherished cordon of forts, supposedly 
guarding the upper lakes and the Mississippi, 

1 Bougainville's memoir in Wis. Hist. Colls.., vol. xviii. 



FOX WARS AND FALL OF NEW FRANCE 101 

proved of small importance in this great crisis. 
The long and weary Fox insurrection had dis- 
rupted the coveted connections of the West, prac- 
tically isolating Canada from Louisiana. There 
had been no time in which to recover, between the 
tribal subjugation culminating in 1750 and the out- 
break of the greater contest with the English. 
France was irretrievably weakened at the arch of 
her inter-communication in the Northwest, a fact 
contributing in no small measure to her defeat ; 
for she had lost the confidence of a large mass of 
her Western savage allies,^ and, with the centre of 
her line of defense broken, could not long have 
withheld British attack in this quarter. With the 
lower St. Lawrence lost, the slender fabric of 
French occupation readily collapsed. 

^ In 1758, for instance, an outbreak of Menominee at La Baye 
resulted in the killing of several Frenchmen and the pillaging of 
the post. 



CHAPTER V 

UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 

As employed in the earliest contemporary Frencli 
documents, the term *' La Baye " was regional 
rather than local. It meant, at first, all of the far- 
stretching shore of the great western arm of Lake 
Michigan. Gradually, however, the name came to 
refer specifically to the six miles of Fox River 
bank, between the mouth of that stream and the De 
Pere rapids.^ Although now two municipalities, 
this district should in any historical account of 
Wisconsin in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies be considered as an entity ; we shall not 
here attempt to distinguish between them. The 
boundaries of the modern cities of De Pere and 
Green Bay practically touch, and there is to-day a 
continuous line of prosperous settlement, urban and 
suburban, between the rapids and the river mouth. 

La Baye lay at the entrance of the principal 
canoe route to the Mississippi. The presence of 
the rapids, the first interruption to the navigation 

^ In 1820, when the boundaries of French claims on Fox River 
were being- established, the federal commissioner reported that 
those at Little Kaukauna, twelve miles above the fort, were also 
" considered to have been comprehended within the settlement of 
Green bay." 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 103 

of the Fox, necessitated the portaging of canoes 
and cargoes, bound either up or down ; and as 
usual at such obstructions, fish were abundant. 
Both strategically and economically important, the 
river banks hereabout undoubtedly were occupied 
by aborigines long before the coming of the French, 
who found this vicinity one of the most important 
native trading centres of the Northwest. In conse- 
quence, white men trafficking for furs appear to 
have early established themselves in the neighbor- 
hood — intermittently at first, but soon with some 
approach to continuity. ^ 

After Father Allouez opened a Jesuit mission at 
De Pere rapids (1671-72), particularly at the time 
of Duluth's defense of the place in 1683, and the 
coming of Perrot (1685) as military commandant 
of the West, it is fair to assume that there was not 
only a forest mission here, but at least a desultory 
French trading settlement ; undoubtedly feeble as 
to numbers, but probably protected by a palisade. 
The earliest documents of the French regime in the 
upper country ^ not infrequently contain casual re- 
ferences to the presence at the mouth of the Fox 
of adventurous traders ; for instance, the lawless 
company whom Allouez found on his arrival in the 
winter of 1669-70, and the advance agents of La 
Salle, who collected at La Baye (1679) the Grif- 
fon's rich cargo of Wisconsin furs. Certainly by 
1717, when what appears to have been the first per- 

^ Published at length in Wis. Hist. Colls., vols, xvi-xviii. 



104 WISCONSIN 

manent fort was erected near the river mouth, this 
far Western outpost of New France seems to have 
been fairly well planted.^ During the protracted 
Fox War, life in Wisconsin was at times intolerable 
for Frenchmen, and they occasionally deserted La 
Baye ; but it is evident, as related in the preceding 
chapter, that with each return of military protection 
white residence was resumed. 

Practically every little waterside stockade de- 
signed to protect the interior fur-trade of New 
France was girt about by a tiny hamlet of habi- 
tans: boatmen, tillers of the soil, mechanics, ac- 
cording to bent or necessity. At the head of society 
in this rude settlement was the military command- 
ant; next in social precedence the Jesuit father, 
whose tiny chapel usually lay just within the gate. 
Visiting the frontier fort were always wandering 
traders, each at the head of a band of rollicking 
voyageurs, jauntily clad in fringed buckskins and 
showy caps and scarfs, with a semi-savage display 
of bracelets, dangling earrings, and necklaces of 
beads. The coiireur de 6ois, with his sprightly party 
of devil-may-care retainers, was not an infrequent 
caller, upon unheralded expeditions here and there 
through the dark woodlands and along sparkling 
waters. Freely mingling with this varied company 

^ A manuscript of 1718, in the Colonial Archives at Paris, pub- 
lished in Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xvi, p. 371, says of La Baye : "It 
is settled by the puants [Winnebago] and folleavoines [Menomi- 
nee] ; there are some French also." 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 105 

were bands of half -naked, long-haired Indians and 
half-breeds, glistening with oils and tricked out 
with paint and feathers. Such a fortified trading 
colony was, no doubt, La Baye of the first two- 
thirds of the eighteenth century. 

The combined genius of General Wolfe and 
Admiral Saunders had compelled the surrender of 
Quebec (September 17, 1759). This practically 
ended French dominion in North America ; but 
New France at large, now grown to seventy-three 
thousand souls, was not actually abandoned until 
after the fall of Montreal (September 8, 1760). 

Among the ofiicers of the colony, assisting Gov- 
ernor Vaudreuil in the defense of Montreal, was 
Lieutenant Charles Langlade, then second in com- 
mand at Mackinac. Five days before the surren- 
der, Vaudreuil sent Langlade back to his fort, 
together with an Indian contingent from the up- 
per lakes and two companies of deserters from the 
British army, on their way to Louisiana by way of 
Mackinac. He also carried with him Vaudreuil's 
instructions to the former's chief, Captain Louis de 
Beaujeu de Villemonde, to evacuate that post and 
retire to the Illinois, leaving Langlade in charge 
until the arrival of the British. Accordingly, in 
October, Beaujeu retired " with 4 officers, 2 cadets, 
48 soldiers and 78 militia." It is probable that he 
picked up on the way whatever garrison may still 
have remained at La Baye. While on Rock River 
the party were caught in the ice, and obliged to 



106 WISCONSIN 

winter there among the Sauk and Foxes, from 
whom they obtained supplies at exorbitant rates as 
measured in trading goods belonging to Beaujeu 
and his partners, for which the owners advanced a 
claim against the French government amounting to 
65,387 livres. It was six months before they arrived 
at their destination. 

Robert Rogers, prominent throughout the French 
and Indian War as a daring and successful leader 
of English provincial rangers, was sent up the 
Great Lakes to enforce the capitulation of French 
outposts in the West ; and during the winter and 
following year secured the transfer of Forts Miami 
and Detroit. 

From Detroit, Rogers dispatched Captain Henry 
Balfour, of the Eightieth (Light-Armed Foot) 
Regiment, to make similar visits to the posts on 
Lakes Huron and Michigan — Mackinac, LaBaye, 
and St. Josephs ; at each of which he was to leave 
a small garrison of regulars from both his own 
regiment and the Sixtieth (Royal American Foot).^ 
Lieutenant William Leslie, of the Sixtieth, was sta- 
tioned at Mackinac with twenty-eight men, while 
Balfour, accompanied by Ensign James Gorrell, a 
young Marylander, also of the Sixtieth, continued 
on to La Baye, where they arrived the 12th of Oc- 

^ Raised in 1757 for frontier service, chiefly among- the Eng- 
lish and German colonists in New York and Pennsylvania. 
While mostly officered from Great Britain, several of the minor 
officers were of American birth. 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 107 

tober (1761), a year after Beaujeu's retreat, to find 
it almost deserted. Together with nearly all of their 
Indian neighbors, the French traders resident at the 
place had already left upon winter hunting parties 
up Fox River and as far west as the Sioux coun- 
try. 

At the end of two days Balfour left the ensign 
with a force of one sergeant, a corporal, fifteen pri- 
vates, and a French interpreter, together with two 
British traders, one McKay of Albany and one God- 
dard of Montreal. Later, five additional Albany 
traders arrived and operated among Wisconsin 
Indians — Garrit Roseboom, Tennis Visscher, Wil- 
liam Bruce, Cummin Shields, and Abraham Lans- 
ing ; the last named being killed by two of his 
French employees. 

It was a dismal outlook for poor Gorrell. The 
old and neglected French fort, which Balfour had 
promptly rechristened Edward Augustus, was 
" quite rotten, the stockade ready to fall, the houses 
without cover, our fire wood far off, and none to be 
got when the river closed." ^ His was the only Brit- 
ish force in the great wilderness west of Lake Michi- 
gan. To the northeast, two hundred and forty miles 
away, across a gloomy stretch of stormy waters 
abounding in strong currents, lay his base, the 
shabby little trading hamlet of Mackinac — not 
now, as*in Marquette's first year and in our own 
time, on the island of that name, but clustered 

^ Gorrell's Journal, in Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. i. 



108 WISCONSIN 

within a cedar-wood stockade some two leagues 
distant, on the south shore of the strait, not far 
west of the Mackinaw City of to-day.^ In the coun- 
try of the Illinois, eight hundred miles of canoe 
journey to the southwest and south, were a half 
dozen small French villages ranged along the Mis- 
sissippi and the Wabash, having in all a shifting 
population of perhaps twenty-five hundred. To the 
westward of the Mississippi lay the great province 
of Louisiana, which France had conveyed to Spain 
by a secret treaty signed (November 3, 1762) just 
previous to the cession of New France to Great 
Britain. Between La Baye and St. Josephs, the 
only other civilized community accessible from 
Lake Michigan, stretched a dangerous water route 
of four hundred miles. 

Here and there, on the bank of a lake or stream, 

^ The term Mackinac, like La Baye and La Pointe, in the ear- 
liest period indicated a district in the neighborhood of a particu- 
lar mission, fort, or settlement. There have been, in chronological 
succession, at least three distinct localities specifically styled 
Mackinac. (1) Between 1670 and 1672, Mackinac Island was the 
seat of the Jesuit mission to the Ottawa. (2) From 1672 to 1706, 
the Mackinac of history was at Point Ignace, on the north shore 
of the strait. Between 1706 and 1712 there does not appear to 
have been any French establishment hereabout. (.3) From 1712 
to 1780, Mackinac was on the south shore ; the mission was in 
1738 removed from Point Ignace to L'Arbre Croche, but later the 
present Franciscan mission was opened on the old Jesuit site at 
Point Ignace. In 1780, the British commenced the erection of a 
fort on Mackinac Island, and in 1781 removed their garrison 
thither; thenceforth, the island has been the seat of military 
power in the district. 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 109 

at the foot of a rapids, or beside some portage path, 
were clustered wretched Indian villages, with both 
long and conical wigwams of bark or matted reeds, 
architecture and materials varying with the tribe, 

— Chippewa, Menominee, Potawatomi, Winne- 
bago, Sauk, Foxes, Kickapoo, Iowa, or Sioux. 
Hard by were their fields of corn and pumpkins, 
rudely cultivated in the summer by women or boys, 
or perhaps by Pawnee slaves obtained in barter 
from the man-hunting nations of the South. Not 
infrequently, either in the dark solitudes of water- 
side forests or boldly exposed on cliffs and hill-tops, 
were to be seen curious earthworks left by preced- 
ing and forgotten tribes : conical mounds in which 
they had ceremoniously buried their dead, inter- 
spersed with those shaped crudely to resemble the 
birds and beasts that were the armorial emblems 
or totems of their several clans — the Bear, the 
Buffalo, the Eagle, the Squirrel, or the Elk. Gor- 
rell estimates in his journal that in what we now 
know as Wisconsin there were then some eleven 
hundred warriors ; and to the west of these, he 
thinks, perhaps eight thousand Iowa and thirty 
thousand Sioux, making a total of some thirty-nine 
thousand savage men dependent on him for sup- 
plies, to say nothing of their women and children 

— a census doubtless much overestimated. 

News traveled swiftly among the aborigines, be- 
ing borne by tribal runners or by ubiquitous forest 
merchants and their voyagews. The recent radical 



110 WISCONSIN 

change in the political mastery of the wilderness 
was freely discussed around, winter camp-fires of 
savage hunters and their friends the French traders. 
The latter lost no opportunity of poisoning the 
minds of the red men toward the newcomers, and 
thus nullifying the friendly overtures of Gorrell, 
whom Sir William Johnson, British superintendent 
of the northern Indian department, had scantily 
supplied with belts of wampum and other appro- 
priate peace-offerings. Johnson had particularly 
instructed him to please the natives at all hazards ; 
but with the limited supply of presents furnished 
to him, this was a difficult task to perform. 

Now and then small squads of the tribesmen 
came straggling into La Baye, spies sent to feel 
the British pulse. Being well treated, they seemed 
invariably to return in high spirits to the woods, 
to pave the way for an era of good feeling. The 
same fair words and judicious distribution of gifts, 
together with good prices for furs and honorable 
business dealing, — in this last respect, better 
treatment than was often accorded them by their 
comrades the French Canadians, — appeared to out- 
weigh the well-founded suspicion of the mercurial 
Indians, that the fastidious English were at heart 
contemptuous of barbarians. Towards the end of 
June (1762) there appeared at the fort a young 
American officer. Ensign Thomas Hutchins, in after 
years famous as a cartographer and long geogra- 
pher-general of the United States, who came to 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 111 

" inquire after Indian affairs," and promised the 
tribesmen flags, medals, and wax-sealed military 
commissions such as their French father had so 
liberally distributed among them. In such manner 
was won the nominal allegiance of the roving- 
bands. The time thenceforth went pleasantly with 
feasting, present-giving and receiving, and floods 
of polite Indian eloquence, in whose easy and obvi- 
ous symbolism English officials soon came to be 
adept ; until the Pontiac uprising in 1763 rudely 
disturbed these apparently friendly relations with 
their wily neighbors, and revealed to the English 
the volcano on which they rested. 

The union jack was now floating over a few 
widely isolated palisades through the Northwest. 
But before Englishmen could enter into full pos- 
session of the country of the Ohio and the upper 
lakes, from which they had ousted French garri- 
sons, the Western savage allies of New France 
must be pacified. Seemingly they had been, as at 
Fort Edward Augustus. But until the news of the 
actual terms of the treaty of Paris (February 10, 
1763) at last reached the forest councils, the 
aborigines were hardly aware of the meaning of 
the victory and of the humiliating terms of peace 
accepted by their French friends, whom they now 
taunted with cowardice. To savage minds it was 
incomprehensible, the more they thought of it, 
that the frontier stockades, which they considered 
stout strongholds, should supinely be surrendered, 



112 WISCONSIN 

without the firing of a gun — simply because of a 
message to that effect from the great French chief 
across the wide water, whom few if any of his 
American officers had ever seen, and who, so far as 
any one could find out, had never exposed his own 
precious body upon the war-path. As for them- 
selves, there were those among them who objected 
bitterly to being handed over like so many baskets 
of corn to the rule of the hated Big Knives, as they 
termed the English. Leading these malcontents 
was Pontiac, head-chief of the Ottawa, a consider- 
able tribe whose home was in Michigan and about 
the northern shores of Lake Huron. His motives 
were in part patriotic, but he was also largely act- 
uated by a wish to avenge certain private wrongs. 
So accentuated was the democracy of the North 
American Indians, that their attempts at concen- 
tration were almost invariably weak. Moreover, as 
individuals they lacked self-control and steadfast- 
ness of purpose. Children of impulse, they soon 
tired of protracted military operations ; their 
strength as fighters lay in their capacity for per- 
sonal stratagem, in their ability to thread the tan- 
gled thickets as silently and easily as they would 
an open plain, in their powers of secrecy, and in 
their habit of making rapid, unexpected sallies for 
robbery and murder, and gliding back into the 
dark and almost impenetrable forest. Moreover, 
tribal jealousies were so intense that intertribal re- 
lations were seldom possible. Thus lacking cohe- 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 113 

sion, Indians generally yielded before the whites, 
who better understood the value of adherence in 
the face of a common foe. Here and there in our 
history there have been formidable Indian con- 
spiracies for entirely dispossessing the whites, such 
as the Virginia scheme (1622), King Philip's up- 
rising (1675), and now the Pontiac War. In later 
days, we find several other such plots ; for example, 
those centring around the names of Cornstalk, 
Tecumseh, Ked Jacket, and Sitting Bull. These 
were, however, the work of native men of genius, 
who had the gift of organization highly developed ; 
but their uprisings were short-lived, because they 
could not find material equal to their skill. 

The conspiracy, breaking out in April, 1763, 
was active all the way from the Alleghauies and 
Niagara on the east to the upper lakes and the 
Mississippi on the west. With a persistence almost 
unique among savages, Pontiac and his numerous 
allies besieged the English forts throughout the 
long summer. While Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) and 
Detroit successfully withstood protracted assaults, 
several of the others succumbed and their garri- 
sons were massacred — notably Presqu'isle, Le 
Boeuf , Venango, Mackinac, Sandusky, St. Josephs, 
Miami, and Ouiatanon (near Lafayette, Ind.). 
The Louisiana posts of Vincennes and Chartres 
had not yet passed into English possession. A 
reign of terror existed along the western borders 
of the American colonies, hundreds of backwoods 



114 WISCONSIN 

families were slaughtered, outlying plantations and 
hamlets were burned, forest traders were brow- 
beaten or killed, and for a time the outlook for 
English trans-Alleghany settlement was gloomy 
enough. 

The story of the massacre of the garrison of 
Mackinac (June 2) is a familiar page in Western 
history. Captain George Ethrington, of Delaware, 
then in command, together with Lieutenant Leslie 
and eleven other Englishmen, were saved in the 
melee by friendly Ottawa and taken in canoes to 
the native village of L'Arbre Croche, some fifty 
miles away on the northeastern shore of Lake 
Michigan, and then the seat of the Jesuit mission 
to the Ottawa. 

As early as the 18th of May, Gorrell (who in 
March, 1762, acquired a lieutenancy) had learned 
of a conspiracy to attack Fort Edward Augustus, 
but by adroit management he continued temporarily 
to satisfy the natives. He had, however, just been 
informed of a fresh plot, when on the 15th of June 
there arrived, by the hand of a delegation of French 
and Ottawa, a note from Ethrington, dated four 
days previous, conveying news of the Mackinac 
tragedy and commanding him to evacuate his post 
and with the English traders join his superior on 
the east shore of Lake Michigan. 

Of all his various neighbors, — Menominee, 
Sauk, Foxes, and Winnebago, — Gorrell placed 
most reliance on the Menominee. But Ethrington 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 115 

having wisely instructed him not to acknowledge 
that his purpose was retreat, he confided to his 
savage friends the information that he desired only 
to restore order at Mackinac, and on their part 
they promised to care for La Baye fort and its sup- 
plies during his absence. 

The proposed departure of the garrison attracted 
general attention, and native delegations swarmed 
to the post to learn more about it, drawing heavily 
on GorrelFs fast-waning store of Indian presents. 
Pontiac's emissaries were active, and opposition to 
the movement began to develop. Affairs were in 
this critical stage when a contingent arrived from 
the trans-Mississippi Sioux, enemies of the Chip- 
pewa, who of the Wisconsin Indians were most at- 
tached to Pontiac's plans. Fortunately, the warlike 
visitors from the West espoused Gorrell's cause, 
and threatened with punishment those who opposed 
him. This attitude at once changed the situation, 
and thereafter was noted only a general solicitude 
to further the commandant's wishes; while the 
friendly Ottawa, who had brought the news, were 
sent back to inform Ethrington of Gorrell's 
approach. 

On the 21st of the month the lieutenant and his 
English traders — the latter were leaving behind 
them, at the mercy of the Indians, large quantities 
of goods ^ — sailed from Fort Edward Augustus in 

^ Evan Shelby and Samuel Postlethwaite of Frederick County, 
Maryland, a large supply firm for the Indian trade, had in 1762 



116 WISCONSIN 

their canoes and bateaux, for escort having ninety 
of the neighboring barbarians, gaudily appareled 
as for a gala day. It was the 30th, after a fair 
passage across Lake Michigan, before they effected 
a junction with Ethrington. Protracted Indian 
councils now followed, day by day, the Chippewa 
opposing the proposition of the English officers 
that they be allowed to descend with their men to 
Montreal ; but the La Baye Indians, renewing 
their old-time allegiance with the Ottawa, insisted 
with the latter that Gorrell and his friends should 
be allowed to depart in peace, and eventually their 
counsel won. On the 18th of July, after allowing 
three of the traders (Bruce, Visscher, and Rose- 
boom) to return to La Baye with their Indian 
friends, the detachment set forth under Ottawa and 
Menominee guidance, in a fleet " consisting of forty 
canoes of soldiers, traders, and Indians." After a 
tedious journey by the old route of the French and 
Ottawa rivers, the party reached Montreal in safety 
on the 13th of August. The following year Macki- 
nac was reoccupied by regulars, but not until the 
brief invasion of 1814 was the English flag again 
seen waving over a Wisconsin fort. 

A few weeks after the retreating garrisons of 
King George had reached Montreal, there was 

outfitted Edmond Moran, a trader at La Baye. As all unsold 
goods were, on Moran's departure, appropriated by the natives, 
the firm's loss was between six and seven thousand dollars, for 
which doubtless they were reimbursed by the British government. 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 117 

issued from Whitehall (October 7) a royal pro- 
clamation relative to the government of those por- 
tions of North America surrendered by France 
through the treaty of Paris, signed the previous 
February. The newly acquired territory was di- 
vided into " four distinct and separate govern- 
ments, stiled and called by the names of Quebec, 
East Florida, West Florida, and Grenada." In 
general terms, the province of Quebec embraced 
Canada and that broad triangle lying between the 
Great Lakes and the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, 
which in history is called the Old Northwest — 
this latter term having reference to the subsequent 
American " Territory Northwest of the River 
Ohio." 

In this proclamation the king solemnly com- 
manded his "loving subjects" not to purchase or 
settle lands to the west of the mountains " without 
our especial leave and license." Several considera- 
tions ai3pear to have prompted this reactionary 
policy. It seemed at London as though Pontiac and 
his followers, who were seriously objecting to the 
presence of Englishmen, might thus be appeased ; 
the fur-trade with the Indians was enormously profit- 
able, it being with the English, as with the French, 
practically the only commerce possible in the interior 
of the continent ; and were the trans- Alleghany kept 
as a preserve for fur-bearing animals, certain power- 
ful London merchants would profit thereby; pos- 
sibly His Majesty thought, also, to check the 



118 WISCONSIN 

westward growth of his wayward American child- 
ren, lest they slip beyond his reach, commercially 
as well as politically. But this injunction, like many 
another attempt at governmental regulation in far- 
off America, was futile; the irresistible expansion of 
the colonies was not for a day checked by a procla- 
mation the news of which probably did not reach the 
borderers themselves until after the spirit of revolt 
had gained such head among them that any royal 
command as to their movements was but idle speech. 

The Pontiac uprising greatly disturbed trans- 
AUeghany settlement and the fur-trade. It did 
more. The weakness displayed by Pennsylvania in 
resisting Indian attacks on her western border set- 
tlements — even Virginia and Maryland were but 
fairly active — called forth from the commander-in- 
chief. General Amherst, angry protests against her 
" infatuated and stupidly obstinate conduct," and 
served to justify the maintenance in America of a 
standing army for the protection and regulation of 
the obstreperous Americans. 

But, as was to be expected, the savages in time 
wearied of their confederacy, and were discouraged 
by frequent defeats. Under French influence, Pon- 
tiac in 1765 sued for and readily obtained peace. 
Thenceforth, until the formal opening of the Revolu- 
tion, eleven years later, the spread of the English 
colonies into the coveted West met only with accus- 
tomed local opposition from tribes that guarded the 
passes of the Appalachians. 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 119 

Prominent among French traders at Mackinac 
were tlie Langiades, who figure largely in the his- 
tory of the upper lakes during the last half of 
the eighteenth century. Their operations extended 
throughout the hinterland of these inland seas, par- 
ticularly Michigan and Superior, and like many of 
their calling they exercised a strong influence over 
the tribesmen of this broad area, with whom they 
were connected by bonds of marriage. In his young 
manhood, Augustin, the senior, had served with 
Lignery in the latter's punitive expedition against 
the Foxes in 1728 ; and in 1731, with his brother 
Didace Mouet, had been one of a company for ex- 
ploiting the Sioux post on the upper Mississippi. 
His son, Charles Michel, more noted than he, was 
born at Mackinac of an Ottawa mother, in May, 1729. 
Charles was employed in the militia of New France 
throughout the French and Indian War, often lead- 
ing against the British and their Indian allies large 
parties of tribesmen and half-breeds from the North- 
west. The English-sympathizing Miami felt his 
strong arm at Pickawillany (1752). At Braddock's 
defeat (1755), his hybrid contingent took promi- 
nent part in the fearful slaughter. He defeated 
Eobert Rogers on Lake Champlain (January, 1757), 
later led the Western Indians against Fort William 
Henry (May), and in the following autumn was 
appointed second officer at Fort Mackinac, where 
he remained until summoned to aid in the Quebec 
campaign (1759). Appointed lieutenant in 1760, 



120 WISCONSIN 

we have seen that Langlade participated in the de- 
fense of Montreal, returning to Mackinac in time 
to help Beaujeu escape with the garrison ; and later 
he surrendered the fort to Balfour and Leslie. 

Peace being declared, the Langiades, in common 
with other Mackinac merchants, now made numer- 
ous trading voyages to the Western interior. It 
seems probable that he and his father had for some 
years, among their several ventures, maintained a 
commercial branch at La Baye, possibly as early as 
1746.^ Attracted by its situation, and its import- 
ance as a centre for inland traffic with the Lidians, 
they had arranged to remove thither with their 
families in the spring of 1763, to make this their 
permanent home ; but, owing to the outbreak of 
Pontiac's conspiracy, remained in Mackinac. It 
would appear that those Englishmen who were 
saved largely owed to Charles's powerful interces- 
sion their lives as well as the permission to depart 
to Montreal. Captain Ethrington left the post in 
charge of the experienced Langlade, who retained 
possession until the arrival of regulars in Septem- 
ber, 1764. Either in the same autumn, or during 
the following year, his family at last carried out 
their plan of settling at La Baye, and at once be- 

^ In a document in Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xvii, pp. 450, 451, 
Governor Beauharnois and Intendant Hocqiiart notify the French 
minister of the marine (September 22, 1746), that they have 
allowed " two private individuals to Fit themselves out at Michili- 
makinae for the said Place of La Baye, on condition that they 
pay 1000 livres each." 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 121 

came the leading landowners and mercliants in the 
Fox River valley.^ 

Pontiac and his fellows having subsided, the 
region beyond Mackinac was again safe for English- 
men and English sympathizers seeking traffic with 
the savao'es. Henceforth we have abundant evi- 
dence that not only the Langlades but many others, 
both traders and travelers, roamed freely through 
the wilds of Wisconsin. But with English as with 
French explorers of the primitive West, few have 
left records by which their wanderings may now be 
traced. It is but occasionally, as the result of me- 
moirs published by or for them in later life, or from 
chance allusions in contemporary official documents, 
that we catch glimpses of a few types of those serv- 
ing as our earliest pioneers. Conspicuous among 
these was Alexander Henry, a fur-trader who spent 
the winter of 1765-66 upon Chequamegon Bay, 
conducting an extensive traffic with the Chippewa, 
who maintained here their principal market. 

Henry had been a young soldier in the British 
army at the reduction of Montreal, and immediately 
thereafter ventured into the far West as a trader, 

^ The Langlades have long- been credited with being the " first 
permanent settlers in Wisconsin;" but documents published in 
Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xviii, conclusively establish that they did 
not settle at La Baye until some twenty years after tradition 
places them there. Even had 1745 been the date of their arrival, 
as stated in tradition, it has been shown that the hamlet was a 
fixture long previous thereto. It is quite impracticable to say who 
was Wisconsin's first "permanent" settler. 



122 WISCONSIN 

with an outfit from Albany. From his headquarters 
at Mackinac, where for a time he was imprisoned 
by Indians engaged in the massacre of 1763, he 
and his representatives made wide journeys through 
the country of the upper lakes. In 1765 he obtained 
from the military authorities a monopoly of the 
Lake Superior trade, sharing it with Jean Baptiste 
Cadotte, who later established himself permanently 
at Chequamegon Bay. 

Ever since the days of Radisson and Groseilliers, 
who built their rude trading shanty on the main- 
land shore near the Washburn of our time, this 
charming bay, a favorite fishing resort of tribes in 
northwest Wisconsin, and convenient to the prin- 
cipal portage routes between Lake Superior and 
the Mississippi River, had at times been resorted 
to by adventurous Frenchmen bartering with the 
savages for furs. While originally applied merely 
to the site of the Jesuit mission, near Radisson's 
landfall, the term " La Pointe " came in time to 
have regional significance, having reference to the 
bay at large. It is not clear when Madelaine Island 
first became, in preference to the mainland, the 
seat of power at Chequamegon. Apparently it was 
not until the time of Le Sueur (1693), who was 
safeguarding the northern approaches to the 
Mississippi, that an insular stronghold came into 
favor. 

In 1717, the year of La Baye's first permanent 
fort, we hear of a stockaded trading station at 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 123 

La Pointe. A year later, Captain Paul Legardeur 
Saint-Pierre, whose mother was a daughter of Jean 
Nicolet (first of known white men to set foot in 
Wisconsin), was sent to command this important 
outpost, succeeded by his chief lieutenant, Ensign 
Linctot. Documents of the fourth decade of the 
eighteenth century contain numerous references to 
one of its commandants, Louis Denis, Sieur de la 
Ronde. In his day. La Ronde, with his son and 
partner, Philippe Denis de la Ronde, were the 
principal merchants on Lake Superior. They built 
for their commercial operations a bark of forty 
tons, accredited with being " the first vessel on the 
Great Lake, with sails larger than an Indian 
blanket." 

The La Rondes were particularly interested in 
copper mining. As early as 1665 Allouez had re- 
ported that this mineral was found in masses on 
the shores and islands of Lake Superior, being 
rudely mined by the savages, and by them fash- 
ioned not only into utensils and implements, but 
into idols which they greatly reverenced. Five 
years later Father Dablon made a still more de- 
tailed report on this subject. We have seen that 
in 1700-02 Le Sueur was discovering copper de- 
posits on the upper Mississippi. The elder La 
Ronde secured much detailed information concern- 
ing native mines on the south shore of the great 
lake, and induced the government at Versailles to 
send out two German experts, who reported (1739) 



124 WISCONSIN 

favorably on deposits at Ontonagon and on the 
Iron and Black rivers, which he was working in a 
small way. Whereupon the Chequamegon com- 
mandant proposed to the king that he be permitted 
to operate his mines on a larger scale, and ship the 
ore in vessels down the lakes. But war breaking 
out between the Sioux and Chippewa, the entire 
upper country was for a time embroiled, and La 
Ronde died before he could secure important results. 

In 1750, Sieur Marin, then commandant of La 
Baye, built a post on the upper waters of the Mis- 
sissippi, and no doubt, like Le Sueur, maintained 
communication with La Pointe by way of the Bois 
Brule-St. Croix trade route ; for he was connected 
with the widespread operations of Legardeur Saint- 
Pierre, who in 1749 had succeeded the Verendryes 
in conducting the " Post of the Western Sea," 
an ambitious cordon of fortified trading stations 
stretching westward from Lake Superior to the 
upper Saskatchewan. 

Hertel de Beaubassin, the last French com- 
mandant at La Pointe, was, about 1758, summoned 
to Lower Canada with his Chippewa allies, to do 
battle against the English. Thereafter, until the 
coming of Henry, who reopened the trading sta- 
tion, we hear little of the place, save that some- 
times there wintered on this lonely, pine-clad 
island nameless traders on their way to and from 
the west end of Lake Superior. 

In some respects, the best known of the explor- 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 125 

ers of Wisconsin during the British regime was 
Jonathan Carver of Connecticut. An ignorant 
shoemaker, — not a physician, as claimed in his 
"Travels," — he enlisted as a private in a Massa- 
chusetts company of rangers serving in the French 
and Indian War. Although later dubbing himself 
captain, there is no evidence that he ever held any 
military office. 

Under pretense of seeking the Northwest Pas- 
sage by way of the upper waters of the Mississippi, 
Carver appears to have left Boston in June, 1766, 
proceeding westward through Albany and Niagara. 
There is ground for suspicion that he was in some 
manner connected with the shady operations of 
Robert Kogers, the famous ranger, then command- 
ant at Mackinac. Rogers was not only somewhat 
mysteriously engaged in the fur-trade, for which 
he supplied Carver with a small stock of goods, 
but was suspected of carrying on an intrigue for 
the delivery of his fort either to the French or 
the Spanish. Imprisoned on a charge of treason, 
he eventually obtained acquittal because of a lack 
of evidence, although this did not quiet suspicion. 
As Carver seems to have joined Rogers in London, 
after this episode, and was himself a common ad- 
venturer who could hardly be interested in mere 
geographical discoveries, it has been surmised that 
in some unexplained manner he was acting as a 
tool of the Mackinac intriguer. 

Carver claims, in his " Travels," to have reached 



126 WISCONSIN 

Green Bay on September 18, to find that Fort Ed- 
ward Augustus, which Gorrell had abandoned three 
years before, was now in a ruinous condition. 
Within the stockade there lived " a few families," 
while, "opposite to it" (on the east shore), were 
" some French settlers, who cultivate the land and 
appear to live very comfortably." 

Passing up the Fox, the traveler visited a Win- 
nebago town of fifty houses on Doty's Island, 
ruled by a chieftess picturesquely named " Glory 
of the Morning," widow of a French trader, De 
Corah, who had fallen in the defense of Quebec. 
From this man fully half of the Winnebago tribe 
of to-day, in Wisconsin and Nebraska, claim de- 
scent. Passing over the Wisconsin portage, where 
he found an intelligent French trader whom he 
calls " Mons. Pinnisance," Carver visited the log- 
house village of the Sauk on Sauk Prairie, " the 
largest and best-built Indian town I ever saw ; " 
and later, an almost deserted Fox camp, probably 
near the present Muscoda. 

Arriving at Prairie du Chien on October 15, he 
found an Indian community of three hundred fam- 
ilies, who owned " many horses of a good size and 
shape," obtained in barter with far Southern 
tribes, who had acquired them from the Span- 
iards. " This," writes Carver, " is the great mart 
where all the adjacent tribes, and even those who 
inhabit the remote branches of the Mississippi, 
annually assemble about the latter end of May, 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 127 

bringing with them furs to dispose of to the 
traders." 

From the earliest historic times this broad, bluff- 
fringed plain at the junction of the Wisconsin and 
Mississippi rivers was widely known as a conven- 
ient meeting-place for natives and fur-traders, 
who tarried here, both spring and autumn, for 
bartering, merry-making, or purposes of rendez- 
vous. La Salle and Perrot, and probably an occa- 
sional successor, maintained trading stations here 
or in the immediate vicinity, but it is not known 
when anything akin to a permanent white settle- 
ment was formed. It has generally been assumed 
that this event occurred in 1781, when Basil Giard, 
Augustin Ange, and Pierre Antaya first staked 
their hahitan claims upon the prairie. But we 
shall see that in 1773 Pond appears to have found 
here a white community of considerable commer- 
cial importance. Carver does not specifically men- 
tion such; but despite the absence of documentary 
evidence, there would seem no reason to doubt that 
French stragglers began somewhat early in the eight- 
eenth century to dwell among the natives at the 
western terminus of the Fox-Wisconsin trade-route, 
and that thereafter such settlement was as contin- 
uous, or nearly so, as that at La Baye. 

Ascending the Mississippi to the site of Minne- 
apolis, Carver visited the surrounding country in 
Minnesota, and wintered with the Sioux of the 
plains, who told him of the Black Hills, and de- 



128 WISCONSIN 

scribed as far distant in the west a river they 
called Oregon, which flowed into the Pacific — 
the stream later styled Columbia. Carver claimed 
that with these tribesmen he visited a large sand- 
stone cave not far north of St. Paul, used by his 
hosts as a council chamber. He pretended that at 
such a council, held the 1st of May, 1767, he was 
given by them a formal deed to a large tract of 
land, including the sites of the present cities of St, 
Paul and Minneapolis, a considerable outlying ter- 
ritory in Minnesota, and the whole or a portion of 
the present Wisconsin counties of Pierce, Pepin, 
Dunn, Clark, Buffalo, Trempealeau, Jackson, Chip- 
pewa, Eau Claire, Polk, Barron, Taylor, Price, and 
Marathon. Soon after the receipt of this enormous 
grant, the traveler proceeded to Lake Superior by 
way of the Chippewa and St. Croix rivers. Thence 
he returned to Boston, which was reached in Octo- 
ber, 1768. 

Whatever may have been his real business in 
the West, Carver had nevertheless, if we may rely 
on his own statement, made a remarkable wilder- 
ness journey of some seven thousand miles, the 
description of which was embraced in a fairly well- 
written volume of travel, published in London in 
1781, a year after his death. Of course Carver him- 
self was incapable of writing such a book. Nothing 
is known of the facts concerning its publication; 
but it is quite evident that he kept some rough 
notes, — possibly like those of Peter Pond, of which ' 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 129 

a sample will be presented later, — and that these 
were given proper form by some literary hack in 
the employ of the publishers. There is no reason, 
we think, to doubt Carver's veracity in the main, so 
far as concerns the tour itself, — the story contains 
undoubted facts relative to the Wisconsin of his 
day, — but the often-cited part containing descrip- 
tions of Indian life and customs is a mere patch- 
work of selections from the journals of Hennepin, 
i Lahontan, Charlevoix, and Adair.^ Like the vol- 
umes thus stolen from, this met with an immediate 
and enormous sale in Europe; from that day to 
this twenty-one editions have been noted, includ- 
ing translations into German, French, and Dutch, 
and it is one of the most quoted of early American 
travels. As for his enormous land claim. Carver's 
children transferred their right in the deed to the 
Mississippi Land Company of New York (1822), 
for X50,000 sterling. Elaborately investigated by 
Congress, the case was finally decided against the 
petitioners ; but notwithstanding, lands in Wiscon- 
sin and Minnesota were long after sold under the 
Carver title by Eastern speculators, and fraudu- 
lent deeds of this character are still on record at 
St. Paul and Prairie du Chien.^ 

Another interesting traveler of that period was 

1 See E. G. Bourue, " The Travels of Jonathan Carver," in 
American Historical Review, vol. xi, pp. 287-302 ; also, notes in 
Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xviii. 

2 See D. S. Durrie, " Captain Jonathan Carver, and Carver's 
Grant," in Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. vi. 



130 WISCONSIN 

Peter Pond, a native of Connecticut (1740), who 
served with credit as a commissioned officer in the 
French and Indian War. After some experience 
as a sailor to the West Indies, he entered upon the 
fur traffic, his first year in the Northwest being 
about 1765. As usual with British traders, his 
goods were shipped to him from Albany by way of 
Schenectady, Niagara, and Lakes Erie and Huron, 
to Mackinac. 

In September, 1773, Pond crossed Lake Michi- 
gan to Green Bay with a small fleet of bateaux, 
having in his company nine clerks (or agents) 
engaged to head as many branch parties in various 
parts of the country around the upper Mississippi. 
The journal of his experiences has been preserved 
for us * — a valuable and picturesque document, 
not less interesting because of its extraordinary 
orthography and capitalization. Speaking of the 
Creole settlement at the mouth of the Fox, he says : 
" We went a Short Distans up the River whare is 
a small french village and thare Incampt for two 
Days. This Land is Exalent. The Inhabitans 
Rase fine Corn and Sum Artickels for fammaley 
youse in thare Gardens. They Have Sum trad with 
y® Indans which Pas that way. ... I ort to have 
Menshand that the french at y® Villeg whare we 
Incampt Rase fine black Cattel & Horses with 
Sum swine." 

Ascending the Fox, visiting the Winnebago at 

^ Published in Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xviii. 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 131 

Doty's Island on the way, the party carried over 
into the Wisconsin, being assisted at the portage 
by the French trader mentioned by Carver, but 
whose name our phonetic diarist spells Pinna- 
shon ; the man had deserted from the army. Pond 
says, to enter the fur-trade. At Prairie du Chien 
they met " a Larg Number of french and Indans 
Makeing out thare arrangements for the In Sewing 
winter and sending of thare cannoes to Different 
Parts." Among the traders assembled at the prai- 
rie were several from New Orleans, who came in 
boats rowed by thirty-six oarsmen ; each of these 
craft being laden with as many as " Sixtey Hog- 
seats of Wine, Besides Ham, Chese, &c — alf to 
trad with the french and Indans." Pond alludes 
to the fact that on this " Very Handsum plain " 
the French and Indians, who rendezvoused there 
every spring and autumn, played " the Grateist 
Games," the former billiards and the latter la 
crosse^ an aboriginal form of tennis. 

After taking part in these animated scenes for 
ten days, in the course of which he dispatched his 
clerks to different tributaries of the Mississippi, 
our diarist set out with two traders for St. Peter's 
River; later spending his winter on "the Plains 
Betwene the Mississippey & the Miseura among 
the [Sioux] on such food as they made youse of 
themselves which was Verey darteyaly Cooked." 
A few years later (1782-83), Pond was among 
those who formed the North West Company, whose 



132 WISCONSIN 

widespread fur-trading operations will subsequently 
be alluded to. 

In 1774, Parliament passed the Quebec Act " for 
making more effectual provision for the government 
of that province." This confirmed to the French 
in Canada, including of course those living in what 
is now Wisconsin, " the benefit and use of their 
own laws, usages, and customs," a privilege en- 
joyed by the people of the present province of 
Quebec unto our own day. It further contained 
the important and beneficent but stoutly contested 
provision that the British king's " new Roman 
Catholic subjects may profess the worship of their 
relfgion according to the rule of the Romish church, 
so far as the laws of Great Britain permit." 
This act had met with keen opposition in Parlia- 
ment, and for various reasons awakened a storm of 
dissent in the American colonies at a time when 
English authority was on the verge of being over- 
thrown, and when every untoward incident but 
helped make matters worse. South of the Great 
Lakes, the act was, broadly speaking, a dead letter 
from the start. 

As for the little French Canadian settlements to 
the west of Lake Michigan, so remote were they 
from centres of population that this formal attempt 
at the establishment of civil government in the 
Northwest had small effect upon them. So far as 
official interference was concerned, they were self- 
governing. The voyageurs and habitans were peace- 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 133 

fully inclined, save for small neighborhood quarrels, 
and for the natural tendency of these simple folk to 
petty litigation. The fur-traders, however, kept the 
upper hand, and the word of the imperious bour- 
geois was law, while not far away was the garrison 
at Mackinac, exercising a repressive influence on 
possible disorder. 

Meanwhile La Baye, the metropolis of the coun- 
try beyond Lake Michigan, was growing slowly. Au- 
gustin Langlade died about 1771, leaving Charles 
the head of the firm and the principal man in 
the valley of the Fox. Two years later came from 
Canada Pierre Grignon, and these two families, 
intermarrying, founded a long line of prosperous 
fur-traders, whom to-day a goodly proportion of the 
French Creoles of northeastern Wisconsin are proud 
to claim as forbears. 

And now came the Revolutionary War. The 
Wisconsin French had loyally supported New 
France. Under the fleur-de-lis, Charles Langlade 
and his barbaric followers struck heavy blows 
against English settlers to the west of the Alle- 
ghanies. But with the change in political control, 
especially after the suppression of Pontiac's con- 
spiracy, liberal treatment from politic English mili- 
tary oflicials won their hearts and, quite naturally 
and properly, a majority of those who had been in 
French military service became firm friends of the 
newcomers. Dwelling far from the Atlantic slope, 
they knew little if anything of the cause, nature, 



134 WISCONSIN 

or extent of the uprising of the colonists against 
British power ; moreover their sympathies and 
associations, social, personal, religious, and com- 
mercial, were as a matter of course wholly with 
Canada. There was every reason for taking service 
under the standard of their new king, and many 
did so. 

We have seen that Charles Langlade rendered 
important service to the English in the Pontiac up- 
rising. Now a captain in the Indian department, he 
was particularly efficient as recruiting agent and 
partisan leader; with him being associated his 
nephew, Charles Gautier de Verville. Their many 
friends and relatives in Wisconsin, red and white, 
were for the most part readily enlisted. Operating 
under orders from Colonel De Peyster, the com- 
mandant at Mackinac, these two men engaged in 
several important forays against the " Bostonnais, " 
as the Wisconsin Creoles ineptly styled Clark's little 
army of Virginians then operating in the Illinois. 
The Menominee were of Langlade's following; 
on Lake Superior, Jean Baptiste Cadotte repre- 
sented English interests and secured the fidelity of 
his relatives the Chippewa ; while traders on the 
upper Mississippi won like support from the Sioux, 
whose principal chief was the stiirdy Wabashaw. 

Absorbed in his enterprise (1778) against the 
Illinois and Wabash forts, seeking to check disas- 
trous British-Indian forays from northwest of the 
Ohio River against American settlements in Ken- 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 135 

tucky, George Rogers Clark did not himself pene- 
trate into Wisconsin. But from his headquarters 
in Kaskaskia active agents were sent among the 
Indians of this region, awakening within those of 
southern Wisconsin, farthest removed from Lang- 
lade's influence, a wholesome feeling of doubt as to 
the outcome of the war. He secured from several 
cautious Sauk, Fox, and Winnebago chiefs a promise 
of neutrality toward these family hostilities between 
the Long Knives and their great white father across 
the sea; and the Milwaukee Potawatomi boldly 
accepted the proffered American alliance. 

Godefroy Linctot, a French trader of consider- 
able importance at Prairie du Chien, also openly 
espoused the American cause. At the head of a 
picturesque company of four hundred French and 
half-breed horsemen, he substantially assisted 
Clark in several of the latter's subsequent expedi- 
tions in the West. Clark rewarded him with a cap- 
tain's (later a major's) commission, and made him 
Indian agent for the upper Mississippi. As for 
Spanish officials at St. Louis, on the Louisiana 
side of the Mississippi, Clark obtained from them 
friendly sympathy and much substantial aid. Had 
the American commander been able to make his 
intended foray against Detroit, there is little doubt 
that he could easily have rallied to his support a 
majority of the French and Indians of southern 
Wisconsin, and many from the trans-Mississippi. 

In the late autumn of 1779, Samuel Robertson, 



136 WISCONSIN 

master of the sloop Felicity, — one of three such 
naval vessels maintained by the British on Lake 
Michigan, — made a reconnoitring voyage around 
the lake, visiting and supplying Indians and traders 
at the mouths of several rivers on the east shore, 
and at " Mill wakey " on the west. At the last-named 
port, which was reached the 3d of November, after 
exceptionally stormy weather, he found a French 
trader whom he calls " Morong," and heard of 
another named Fay, at Two Kivers, fifty miles to 
the north, also on the lake shore. 

Robertson's log was written in somewhat chaotic 
English, as note his paragraph in allusion to Mil- 
waukee : ^ — 

M' Gautley gives them [Morong and " a war chef 
named Lodegand "] a present 3 bottles of Rum & half car- 
rot of Tohaco, and told them the manner governor Sinclair 
[of Mackinac] could wish theni to Behave, at which they 
seemd weallsatisfeyed, he also give instructions to Mon- 
sier S* Pier to deliver some strings of Wampum and a 
little Keg of rum to the following & a carrot of Tobaco 
in governor Sinclairs name ; likewise the manour how to 
behave ; he also gave another small Kegg with some 
strings of Wampum with a carrot of Tobaco to Deliver 
the indeans at Millwakey which is a mixed Tribe of 
different nations. 

During the same year, Spain declared war against 
Great Britain, and under the leadership of Galvez, 
governor-general of Louisiana, captured Natchez, 
^ Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xi. 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 137 

Baton Rouge, Mobile, Pensacola, and other Eng- 
lish settlements in the South. Galvez was proceed- 
ing against the Bahamas and Jamaica when the 
news of peace arrived, thus putting a stop to his 
ambitious undertaking. 

One of the features of this embroglio with Spain 
was an expedition against the Spaniards of St. 
Louis and their American friends in the Illinois, 
projected by the English commandant at Mackinac. 
He had been informed by Governor-General Hal- 
dimand of Canada that an English fleet and army 
were to ascend the Mississippi to attack New Or- 
leans and other Spanish settlements, and that a 
cooperating demonstration from the north would be 
helpful. Moreover, some of the Mackinac traders 
operating on Western waters were complaining of 
injuries received at the hands of Spaniards. 

" Seven hundred & fifty men including Traders, 
servants and Indians," so runs the official report,^ 
left Mackinac the 10th of March (1780) and pro- 
ceeded ever the Fox- Wisconsin route to Prairie du 
Chien, where they were joined by several French 
traders at the head of bands of Chippewa, Sioux, 
Menominee, Winnebago, Sauk, and Foxes. A large 
armed boat, with a crew of thirteen Americans and 
a valuable cargo of trading goods and provisions, 
was captured off Turkey River, furnishing the 
sinews of war for the furtherance of the enterprise. 
From the neighboring lead mines about the present 

^ Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xi. 



138 WISCONSIN 

Illinois town of Galena, the warriors brought in 
" seventeen Spanish & Rebel Prisoners, & stopp'd 
Fifty Tonns of Lead ore," together with additional 
provisions. Meanwhile, Langlade assembled at Chi- 
cago a considerable party of French and Indians 
to make an attack by way of Illinois River, " and 
another party [Ottawa] are sent to watch the 
Plains between the Wabash and the Mississippi," 
and thus cut off Vincennes. 

But despite these elaborate arrangements and 
early successes, the demonstration lacked strength. 
The savage allies of the English, particularly the 
Sauk and Foxes, were but half-hearted ; three of 
their French leaders — Hesse, Du Charme, and 
Calve, well-known Wisconsin fur-traders ^ — were 
accused of bold-faced treachery, no doubt allow- 
ing themselves to be tampered with by American 
agents ; and the Potawatomi of the Milwaukee 
neighborhood were doing their best to upset Lang- 
lade's plans. In fact, the lead mines and the Illinois 
generally, together with most of southern Wiscon- 
sin, were now found to be filled with American 
sympathizers, both traders and tribesmen, a cir- 
cumstance well calculated to give pause to French 
and Indian allies of England, for seemingly their 
chief desire was to be friendly with the victors, 
whoever they might be. 

Spaniards and Americans had received advance 
notice of every movement against them, and were 
so well prepared that the assault was easily check- 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 139 

mated. The principal features were the burning of 
outlying cabins at St. Louis, the raiding of traders' 
and cattle-men's camps, and the intercepting of 
American supply boats on the Mississippi. The 
marauders, returning by various routes through 
Wisconsin and Illinois, "brought off Forty-three 
Scalps, thirty-four prisoners. Blacks and Whites 
& killed about 70 Persons. They destroyed several 
hundred cattle, but were beat off on their attacks 
both sides of the River." 

Contemporary Spanish reports of this affair allude 
with bitterness to Hesse's conduct, as "the ferocity 
of an officer deeply dyed with inhumanity."^ 

As a result of conflict between this expedition 
and the American garrison at Cahokia, on the east 
side of the Mississippi, a few miles only from St. 
Louis, Colonel Clark sent a small detachment to 
punish the Indians on Illinois River. This vigor- 
ous invasion of native territory, and the usual 
wholesome fear of Clark's intentions, so alarmed 
the English traders that it was thought desirable 
to remove from harm's way their large stock of 
furs at Prairie du Chien. 

Accordingly there was dispatched from Mack- 
inac in June (1780) a party of twenty Canadians 
and thirty-six Foxes and Sioux, in nine large birch 
canoes. One of the members of this force was 
John Long, a trader who had been operating on 

^ English documents in Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xi ; Spanish, in 
vol. xviii. 



140 WISCONSIN 

the north shore of Lake Superior, but who had 
spent the winter of 1779-80 with the Chippewa 
near Fort Mackinac. To Long's interesting jour- 
nal * we are indebted for our knowledge of the 
enterprise. Arriving at Prairie du Chien, " a town 
of considerable note, built after the Indian man- 
ner," they found Langlade, *' the king's interpreter," 
who with the help of several Indians — all of whom 
"were rejoiced to see us" — was guarding the bales 
of peltries in a log house. Three hundred packs of 
the best skins were placed in the canoes, the re- 
maining sixty being burned to prevent their falling 
into the hands of the enemy ; whereupon the res- 
cuers took up their return journey to Mackinac, 
which they reached after an absence of eighty 
days. " About five days after our departure " from 
Prairie du Chien, wrote Long in his journal, " we 
were informed that the Americans came to attack 
us, but to their extreme mortification we were out 
of their reach." 

The Spaniards, on their part, soon replied to 
the attack on St. Louis by dispatching (January, 
1781) a force of sixty-five militiamen, half of them 
French, together with the usual savage camp-fol- 
lowers, against Fort St. Josephs, four hundred 
miles distant to the northeast from St. Louis. The 
men had a weary midwinter march across Illinois 
and northern Indiana, but succeeded in driving off 
the small English garrison, capturing rich spoils 
^ Thwaites, Early Western Travels^ vol. ii. 



UNDER THE BRITISH FLAG 141 

from the considerable group of fur-traders collected 
there, and destroying such other stores of ammu- 
nition and goods as they and their Indian allies 
could not carry away.^ 

^ See Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xviii, for a discussion of this curious 
afFair, based on recently-discovered documents. While nominally 
a Spanish expedition, it appears to have been incited by Americans 
and the habitans of Cahokia, taking advantage of the defection of 
the neighboring Potawatomi, who were deserting the British 
interest. 



CHAPTER VI 

FROM THE PEACE OF PAKIS TO JAY'S TREATY 

Early in the peace negotiations at Paris (1782), 
it was evident that Spain wished to retain control 
of both the Gulf of Mexico and the Mississippi 
River. She sought to restrain the United States 
from extending as far south as the Gulf, basing her 
claims on the coastwise conquests of Galvez (1779- 
81) ; while on the west she aimed at obtaining as 
the result of her expedition against St. Josephs a 
large slice of the country lying back of the Alle- 
ghanies and abutting on the east bank of the Mis- 
sissippi. In these bold demands Spain was quietly 
backed by her neighbor, France. Although having 
recognized and assisted at American independence, 
neither of these European powers seemed desirous 
that the new republic should have much room for 
growth beyond the Atlantic slope. 

Notwithstanding instructions from Congress to 
act only with the consent of France, the astute 
American commissioners (Franklin, Adams, and 
Jay) took alarm at the attitude of our ally and 
conducted their own negotiations with Great 
Britain. In the matter of the western boundary, 
they stoutly held for and ultimately gained the 



PEACE OF PARIS TO JAY'S TREATY 143 

Mississippi. For the northern, they offered two 
alternatives — one, a line passing through the 
middle of the Great Lakes, the other the forty- 
fifth degree of latitude. This last-named boundary 
would have allowed Great Britain to retain the 
northern half of Maine, all of the upper peninsula 
of Michigan, that portion of southern Michigan 
stretching north of Otsego Lake, and so much of 
Wisconsin as lies north of a line drawn due west 
from Peshtigo Harbor to Hudson, together with all 
of Lake Superior, the outlet of Lake Michigan, 
and the northern waters of Lake Huron ; whereas 
to the United States would have been awarded the 
southern and most fertile portion of Ontario, with 
the sites of Kingston, Toronto, and London, as 
well as complete control of Lakes Erie and On- 
tario. The boundary finally adopted by Great 
Britain was a better and more natural arrange- 
ment for both countries — from Connecticut River 
westward along the forty -fifth parallel to the St. 
Lawrence, thence through the middle of the Great 
Lakes and connecting waters to the Lake of the 
Woods, whence the line was to run due west to 
the source of the Mississippi. This latter provision 
was based upon a geographical error then current 
on American maps, placing the source of that river 
much farther north than it was afterwards found 
to extend, which mistake was later the cause of 
misunderstanding. With this boundary arranged, 
the definitive treaty was finally signed on Septem- 



144 WISCONSIN 

ber 3, 1783, preliminary articles of peace having 
been negotiated ten months before. 

In the seventh article of the definitive treaty, it 
was promised that " His Britannic Majesty shall, 
with all convenient speed, . . . withdraw all his 
armies, garrisons, and fleets from the said United 
States, and from every post, place, and harbor 
within the same." In the spring of 1784 Wash- 
ington's representative, Baron Steuben, was sent 
to Quebec to make arrangements with Governor 
Haldimand for the transfer of the northern posts, 
— among them Detroit and Mackinac,^ — but was 
met by the polite but firm statement that British 
military officials had as yet received no orders to 
turn them over to the Americans. Later, diplo- 
matic assurances were to the effect that these 
strongholds were being retained until the new fed- 
eral government had secured from the several 
states restitution of confiscated Loyalist property. 
The United States were also accused of placing 
obstacles in the path of private British claims 
against American citizens, and of allowing the 
continued persecution of those who had sided with 
England in the late war. 

Secretary Jefferson reminded the British min- 
ister that all that the United States had promised 

^ The posts concerned were : on Lake Champlain, Pointe au 
Fer and Dutchman's Point ; in New York, Niagara, Oswego, and 
Oswegatchie ; on Lake Erie, Fort Erie ; on the upper lakes, De- 
troit and Mackinac. 



PEACE OF PARIS TO JAY'S TREATY 145 

in the treaty was to recommend the states to 
make such restitution, Congress having neither 
authority nor power to coerce them. In the course 
of these negotiations, Great Britain was charged 
with not treating the Americans fairly. She had 
declined to enter into a treaty of commerce with 
them ; she was crippling American trade with the 
West Indies ; and had failed to make compensa- 
tion for the many negro slaves — thousands in 
number, it was claimed — that had been taken 
away by the British at the close of the war. 

Jefferson pointed out that, through retention of 
the posts, the English were continuing their hold 
upon territory south of the international boundary 
agreed upon ; exercising power over persons dwell- 
ing within the United States ; even denying navi- 
gation rights to American citizens in American 
territory ; and " intercepting us entirely from the 
commerce of furs with Indian nations to the north- 
ward, a commerce which has ever been of great 
importance to the United States, not only for its 
intrinsic value, but as it was a means of cherishing 
peace with those Indians and of superseding the 
necessity of that expensive warfare we have been 
obliged to carry on with them during the time 
those posts have been in other hands." 

There was much ground for friction between 
the new nation and its parent, and, as usual in 
such cases, both were in a measure to blame. But 
Great Britain's real reason for the retention of the 



146 WISCONSIN 

posts upon the upper lakes was not difficult to 
find. Jefferson had hinted at it. The fur-trade of 
Canada had, for those times, grown into enormous 
proportions during the twenty years between the 
downfall of New France and the close of the Revo- 
lutionary War. In the far north the great Hud- 
son's Bay Company, whose offices were in London, 
had for a century been reaping large profits for 
its privileged coterie of stockholders. Immediately 
after the surrender of Montreal (1760), the coun- 
try to the south of the Hudson Bay hinterland, 
all the way from the Ohio to the Saskatchewan 
and Great Slave Lake, — a thousand miles beyond 
Lake Superior, — swarmed with independent Brit- 
ish traders, such as Alexander Henry, Peter Pond, 
and John Lo*ng, whose experiences in Wisconsin 
have already been alluded to. In the employ of 
these merchant adventurers, Scotchmen to a large 
extent, whose daring enterprise equaled if it did 
not surpass that of their French predecessors, were 
many experienced French traders ; while French 
and half-breed voyageurs found under their new 
masters quite as lucrative positions as in the days 
of the French regime. 

Montreal was the business headquarters of the 
majority of the independents, from here being for- 
warded in large bateaux the goods and supj)lies 
imported from England and Scotland. Detroit, 
Mackinac, Sault Ste. Marie, and Grand Portage 
(near the mouth of Pigeon River, on the north- 



PEACE OF PARIS TO JAY'S TREATY 147 

west shore of Lake Superior) were the secondary 
centres of distribution ; and to these several posts 
returned each spring large fleets of bark canoes, 
laden with packs of peltries secured in barter from 
Indians throughout the vast region between Lake 
Huron and the Pacific Ocean. ^ 

At least twelve large operators, with consider- 
able companies of retainers, were at work in this 
territory at the time of the treaty negotiations in 
Paris. These rivals had long carried on a bitter 
warfare among themselves, occasionally marked 
by wilderness broils and even murder. In the 
winter of 1783-84, immediately following the estab- 
lishment of the international boundary, the major- 
ity of the Canadians formed a stock corporation 
under the name of the North West Company, 
which in 1787 admitted to their union those who 
had failed to join the first organization. Thereafter 
the Canadian fur-trade was controlled by two 
organizations only, the Hudson's Bay and the North 
West, the formbr having its chief operating head- 
quarters at Prince of Wales Fort, and the latter on 
Mackinac Island and at Grand Portage. Of the 
life led by the *' Nor' West " chiefs at Grand Por- 
tage, the gateway to the Canadian Northwest, dur- 
ing these palmy days of the fur traffic, Washington 
Irving has given us a vivid description in his charm- 
ing " Astoria." 

^ Consult Frederick J. Turner, " The Character and Influence of 
the Fur Trade in Wisconsin," in Wis. Hist. Soc. Proceedings^ 1889. 



148 WISCONSIN 

Taking into consideration the fact that there 
still were large tracts of fur-bearing wilderness in 
the spacious triangle lying between the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes, and that 
the important entrejjots of Detroit, Mackinac, and 
Grand Portage lay within this region, it is small 
wonder that the British government, influenced by 
powerful business interests, should be loth to sur- 
render the posts upon the upper lakes, controlling 
as they did both the fur-trade and the Indian 
tribes. Jefferson was right in maintaining that 
commerce was a sure road to the affections of the 
tribesmen. Had the posts been surrendered in 
1783, as stipulated, the Indian trade would at once 
have been prosecuted through American channels, 
and the United States probably saved a long and 
exhausting period of frontier wars. 

Then, again, it must be remembered that Eng- 
lish statesmen, kept informed by spies, were not 
slow to observe that seeds of disunion were being 
sown, contemporaneously with the establishment 
of the American republic. The settlers of Ken- 
tucky were restless, and not infrequently rebellious, 
over Spanish ownership of the fair country to the 
west of the Mississippi, and particularly at Spain's 
mastery of the mouth of the Mississippi, the chief 
highway for such of their products as sought the 
markets of the world. There was, as well, much 
discontent at the retention of the fur-trade in 
British hands. Indeed, at one time some of the 



PEACE OF PARIS TO JAY'S TREATY 149 

Kentuckians were proposing to organize an expedi- 
tion to proceed up the Mississippi and over the old 
Fox- Wisconsin route to raid Fort Mackinac. The 
West was for several years a hotbed of discontent 
over apparent federal indifference to its peculiar 
needs, and for a considerable period there was fear 
among acute observers that the trans-AUeghany 
might detach itself from the Union and possibly 
join either France or Spain. England saw that 
France was desirous of again possessing the trans- 
Mississippi, an act accomplished in 1800, and that 
Spain was too weak to resist. In view of the press- 
ing demands of the Montreal traders and the un- 
certainty of the political future of the West, it is 
not surprising that Great Britain welcomed an 
excuse for keeping firm hold upon the forts and 
Indians of this region, and planned to resist by 
armed force any American attempts to dispossess 
her ; and that most British officials in Canada 
firmly believed that the Northwest might in whole 
or in part be regained. 

It was freely asserted by Northwest frontiersmen, 
and very likely the charge was true, that the tribes- 
men of this region were being persistently advised 
by these Canadian officials that the time was not far 
distant when their great father in London would 
regain the land, in which English and Indians, 
together with their French friends, had dwelt to- 
gether in loving relationship. Just as the savages 
of twenty years before had, under Pontiac's elo- 



150 WISCONSIN 

quence, waxed indignant over being handed over 
by the French to the British as so many chattels ; 
so now, having come highly to regard the latter, 
they stoutly objected to being transferred, without 
permission, to the domination of the savage-hating 
Long Knives and Bostonnais, whom they thought 
they had every reason to detest and fear. With a 
view of placating them, British officers continued 
to receive the tribal delegations that swarmed upon 
them at the northern posts. As of old, the visitors 
were given military commissions, gay uniforms, 
medals, arms and ammunition, and a profusion of 
miscellaneous presents — liberality in sad contrast 
with the method of the economical Americans, who 
without doubt were somewhat niggardly toward 
their red wards. 

It was and still is believed by many that the 
British did not stop at prophecy and hospitable 
present-giving, but actively fomented among their 
guests dissatisfaction against the land-grabbing 
and miserly Americans ; and, perhaps unofficially, 
nevertheless effectively, encouraged and indeed ac- 
tually outfitted murderous native raids against fron- 
tier settlements in the Ohio country. Considering 
the prevalent official opinion in Canada, that the 
Northwest was soon to be regained, it is quite prob- 
able that here and there an unwise officer may have 
overstepped the bounds of discretion and neutrality. 
That, however, there was any general policy of this 
character, or widespread assistance to the warring 



PEACE OF PARIS TO JAY'S TREATY 151 

savages, in their hideous forays, has yet to be 
proved. No trace of it is to be found in the public 
documents of the period. Abundance of ground is 
there for complaint of the political policy of the 
Georges towards America, in her younger and 
weaker days. But the English people are of the 
same stock as ourselves ; the tendency to inhuman 
practices is not in the blood. 

Those Atlantic states which, from the terms of 
their colonial charters, claimed all territory to the 
west of them, as far as the Pacific Ocean, were in- 
duced to surrender to the federal government their 
respective claims to lands between the Great Lakes 
and the rivers Ohio and Mississippi, in order that 
this area might constitute a national domain from 
which new states should eventually be formed.^ As 
early as September 7, 1783, but four days after the 
signing of the Treaty of Paris, Washington offered 
tentative suggestions ^ relative to the formation of 
a commonwealth north of Ohio River, roughly 
equivalent to the present State of Ohio. In the 
following April, the same day that Virginia made 
cession of her claim, Jefferson drafted a committee 
report to the Congress of the Confederation, pro- 
viding for the government of the Western territory 

^ Virginia's cession was made in 1784 ; Connecticut's in 1786 
and 1800 ; Massachusetts's in 1785. Territory north of 43° 43' 
12 " was acquired from Great Britain under the treaty of 1783. 

^ To James Duane, congressman from New York. Sparks, 
Life and Writings of Washington, vol. viii, p. 477. 



152 WISCONSIN 

and its division into seven states, to be styled Wash- 
ington, Saratoga, Illinoia, Metropotamia, Chersone- 
sus, Assenisipia, Michigania, and Sylvania — the 
three last named embracing territory now wholly or 
in part included in Wisconsin.^ Congress practi- 
cally accepted his plan of division in the Ordinance 
of April 23, 1784, but not these fantastic names, 
each section being wisely left to choose its own title 
on entering the Union. 

July 13, 1787, Congress adopted another and far 
better plan, the " Ordinance for the government of 
the territory of the United States northwest of the 
river Ohio." This second scheme of government for 
the Western country is popularly referred to as the 
" Ordinance of 1787 ; " the district was thereafter 
known as Northwest Territory — the " Old North- 
west" of present-day histories, to distinguish it 
from the later Northwest, on the Pacific Coast. 
The ordinance, which has served as a model for all 
subsequent American territorial government, pro- 
vided for freedom of religion, inviolability of con- 
tracts, a humane treatment of the tribesmen, the 
permanence of " the not less than three nor more 
than five" new states into which the Northwest 
Territory was eventually to be divided, the entire 
freedom of all portages and waterways, the per- 
petual " encouragement of schools and the means 

1 Randall, Life of Jefferson, vol. i, p. 397. Map in Wis. Hist. 
Colls., vol. xi, p. 452. 



PEACE OF PARIS TO JAY'S TREATY 153 

of education," and the freedom of all persons save 
fugitive slaves from the original thirteen states. It 
was expressly declared that these several liberal 
provisions — of which those laying the foundations 
of our present popular educational system, and pro- 
hibiting slavery in the Northwest, have been the 
most admired — "shall be considered as articles 
of compact, between the original states and the 
people and states in the said territory, and forever 
remain unalterable, unless by common consent." 
In a later chapter, we shall have occasion to refer 
in some detail to the plan of division into states. 

At the time of the adoption of this famous ordi- 
nance, there already were sparse settlements of 
Americans at what is now Cincinnati, at Clarks- 
ville (Indiana), and at other points on the banks 
of the Ohio. Small hamlets of French and half- 
breeds were to be found at Fort Wayne, South 
Bend, and Vincennes, within the present Indiana ; 
at Peoria, Kaskaskia, and Cahokia, in the Illinois 
country ; at Detroit, Sault Ste. Marie, and on the 
island and straits of Mackinac, in Michigan ; and 
at Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, and La Pointe, in 
Wisconsin. A census of these widely separated 
communities — between which lay a wilderness of 
forest and prairie, lakes, marshes, and rivers, and 
among which wandered tribes of semi-nomadic bar- 
barians — would at that time probably have re- 
vealed in all the vast Northwest Territory not more 
than thirty thousand whites. The following spring 



154 WISCONSIN 

a party of Revolutionary veterans settled on serv- 
ice-bounty lands at Marietta, Ohio, and thereafter 
the growth of the territory was constant and con- 
siderable. 

Wisconsin lay within the newly organized North- 
west Territory. But owing to British retention of 
Mackinac, of which the country between Lake 
Michigan and the Mississippi was both a fur-trade 
and a military dependency, it was many years 
before the territorial government assumed control 
of this, the farthest American Northwest. Life ran 
on, therefore, in much the same 'fashion as of old. 
British traders, operating from Mackinac, were the 
commercial lords of the manor. They were, how- 
ever, few in number. Their agents, boatmen, and 
trappers were the French of the old regime. At 
the little riverside hamlets, the hahitan was still 
chiefly in evidence, leisurely working his narrow 
field when not absent upon far-away trading expe- 
ditions. The transfer of political mastery, from 
French to English, had wrought no visible change 
in this conservative folk. Americans were un- 
known here, save by their unwelcome reputation as 
a nervous, discontented people, heralds of a relent- 
less system of conquest, bent on ruining the forests, 
browbeating the Indians, driving sharp bargains, 
and in general making the world an uncomfortable 
place wherein to live. The annals of these quiet 
Wisconsin neighborhoods are few. The nearest 
register of marriages, births, baptisms, and deaths 



PEACE OF PARIS TO JAY'S TREATY 155 

was kept at Mackinac* What of importance we 
have to record, up to the time of the actual coming 
of the dreaded Americans (1815), is fragmentary. 
Arcady furnishes scant material for historians. 

We have seen that lead-mining in the Missis- 
sippi River hinterland, within what are now Wis- 
consin, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri, — one of the 
richest lead-bearing regions in the world, — early 
became an industry of considerable importance. 
The French were continually seeking for beds of 
mineral, particularly copper and lead, and closely 
questioned the Indians concerning them. While 
in a measure superstitious with regard to all ores, 
their cupidity soon induced them to betray the 
presence of both of those so persistently sought. 
The white man had introduced firearms amons* the 
aborigines, and induced them to hunt fur-bearing 
animals on a large scale ; thus lead at once assumed 
among them a considerable economic value, both 
for use as bullets and as an article of profitable 
traffic with the traders, the latter coming from long 
distances to obtain their supplies of this essential. 

So far as we can now ascertain, Nicolet was the 
first to teach Northwest tribesmen the use of gun- 
powder. Radisson and Groseilliers heard of lead 
among the Boeuf Sioux, apparently in the neigh- 
borhood of Dubuque. The journals of Marquette, 
Hennepin, and Lahontan allude to the mineral 

^ The marriage entries are published in Wis. Hist. Colls., vols, 
xviii and xix. 



156 WISCONSIN 

wealth o£ the district — Hennepin's map shows a 
lead mine in the vicinity of Galena. Joutel (1687) 
says that " travelers who have been at the upper 
part of the Mississippi affirm that they have found 
mines of very good lead there." Perrot, by the aid 
of natives to whom he taught the rudiments of 
mining and smelting, obtained lead from a mine 
about opposite Dubuque. The operations of Le 
Sueur have been alluded to in a previous chapter. 
In 1712 Sieur Anthony Crozat was granted a mo- 
nopoly of trade and mining privileges in Louisiana, 
and his men worked shafts in southeastern Mis- 
souri ; so also the representatives of Governor La 
Mothe Cadillac, who three years later penetrated 
to these parts. Various prospecting parties sent out 
under military protection by Philippe Frangois 
de Renault, " director-general of the mines of the 
Royal India Company in Illinois," were success- 
fully operating in the district from 1719 to 1723. 
There exists a report made in 1743 of certain in- 
dependent lead miners hereabout, who worked at 
surface diggings and conducted wasteful smelting 
methods, — "but in spite of the bad system . . . 
there has been taken out of the La Mothe mine 
2500 of these bars in 1741, 2228 in 1742, and these 
men work only four or five months in the year at 
most." 

The withdrawal of France from the country east 
of the Mississippi (1763) brought several excellent 
mines within British boundaries ; Jonathan Carver 



PEACE OF PARIS TO JAY'S TREATY 157 

noted at least one such near Prairie du Sac, on 
Wisconsin River. But the bulk of the lead product 
of the upper valley of the Mississippi still came 
from west of the river, Spain now profiting from 
the mines instead of France. St. Genevieve was 
long the principal market, but when St. Louis be- 
came the commercial centre of the region the traffic 
was transferred thither. As early as 1766 the pro- 
duct was shipped to New Orleans in " large boats 
of 20 tons, rowed with 20 oars." During the last 
quarter of the eighteenth century lead was, next to 
peltries, the most important and profitable export 
of the country, and served as currency. We are 
told that individual lead miners, working for them- 
selves, often took out " thirty dollars per day, for 
weeks together." 

One of the most interesting characters attracted 
to the lead district in its early days was Julien 
Dubuque, a trader of remarkable energy and singu- 
larly popular among the Indians, whom he em- 
ployed in considerable numbers as prospectors and 
miners. Having made important discoveries in the 
neighborhood of the present Iowa city of Dubuque, 
he later extended his field to the east of the Mis- 
sissippi. A full council of Sauk and Fox Indians 
at Prairie du Chien granted him (1788) formal 
permission " to work lead mines tranquilly and 
without prejudice to his labors ; " and thereafter, 
for many years, he and his agents conducted oper- 
ations in northwestern Illinois and southwestern 



158 WISCONSIN 

Wisconsin, in diggings wherein Indians were said 
to have crudely delved for bullet lead, a full cen- 
tury before.^ Dubuque waxed wealthy from his 
lead and peltries, and in 1805 formally acknow- 
ledged the ownership of a mining tract west of the 
Mississippi, " twenty-eight or twenty-seven leagues 
long, and from one to three broad." 

British retention of the frontier forts was of 
course not allowed to pass unnoticed. Diplomatic 
negotiations for the righting of what the United 
States government considered a wrong and a seri- 
ous menace were continued by John Adams, the 
American agent in London (1785-88), who vainly 
sought recognition of his country's claims. But un- 
der the Congress of the Confederation, the United 
States were almost as weak as any small South 
American republic of our own day, and might 
easily be put off at the behest of fur-trade mag- 
nates in London and Montreal. Adams was suc- 
ceeded by Gouverneur Morris, whose patience was 
also severely taxed. 

Meanwhile, various complications had arisen, 
tending still further to strain relations between the 
two countries. Spain was intriguing with the West- 
erners, chiefly through the secret agency of General 
James Wilkinson of the American army, with the 
ostensible view of securing their interest in return 

1 For a general survey of this subject, see Thwaites, " Notes on 
Early Lead Mining in the Fever (or Galena) River Region," Wis. 
Hist. Colls., vol. xiii. 



PEACE OF PARIS TO JAY'S TKEATY 159 

for navigation rights upon tiie Mississippi, but ap- 
parently seeking only to alienate them from, and 
thus to weaken, the Union ; at the same time 
that, with characteristic duplicity, she was secretly 
urging the jealous Southern tribes to destroy Ameri- 
can settlements in Tennessee and Kentucky. On 
her part, France was forwarding a conspiracy 
among these same frontiersmen to raise an army 
of filibusters, under George Kogers Clark, to oust 
Spain from Louisiana. 

The Indians of Northwest Territory, who had 
complained bitterly of the cession of their country 
to the Americans, grew restless over the steady ir- 
ruption of settlers into lands north of the Ohio. By 
a treaty at Fort Harmar, in 1789, some of the 
chiefs ceded to the newcomers a considerable strip 
of territory ; other tribesmen, however, denounced 
this transaction as fraudulent. The recalcitrants 
precipitated a disastrous border war of five years' 
duration, in the course of which the British, taking 
advantage of the situation, erected a new fort 
within American territory, at Maumee rapids, the 
site of the present Perrysburg, Ohio, an embarrass- 
ing menace to our military department. Cowed at 
last, but after great expenditure of American lives 
and treasure, the Indian malcontents consented to 
a treaty of peace signed at Greenville, August 4, 
1795. At this council the American commissioners 
were able to announce to the tribesmen that a 
treaty had been concluded in London (November 



160 WISCONSIN 

19, 1794), through the diplomacy of John Jay, by 
which the northern posts were to be evacuated by 
the British on the 1st of June, 1796. 

Besides this agreement, so essential to the inter- 
ests of the Northwest, the Jay Treaty made pro- 
vision for complete freedom of trade between the 
United States and Great Britain and her colonies, 
for the free navigation of the Mississippi for both 
nations, and for a survey of the sources of that 
river with a view to establishing the international 
boundary in our Northwest. 

The year after the execution of Jay's Treaty, 
and a month following that of Greenville, there 
was signed at Madrid (October 27, 1795) a cove- 
nant between the United States and Spain, by 
which Americans were granted by the latter country 
full rights of navigation upon the great river, and 
of depositing their products at New Orleans. 
Thereafter no more was heard either of Spanish 
intrigues in Kentucky or of Western uneasiness. 

In October (1796), American troops first took 
possession of Mackinac, and with it, of course, the 
dependency of Wisconsin. The English, however, 
were still so confident that they would some day 
win back the country of the upper lakes, that their 
garrison retired only to St. Joseph's Island, some 
fifty miles to the northeast, where the year previ- 
ous had been erected a new fort. 



CHAPTER VII 

BRITISH INFLUENCE CONTINUED 

Although the American flag was now displayed 
above Fort Mackinac, it was to be nineteen years 
before this emblem of the new sovereignty fluttered 
to the west of Lake Michigan. 

Article 2 of the Jay Treaty of 1794 had provided 
that 

All settlers and traders within the precincts or juris- 
diction of the said posts shall continue to enjoy, unmo- 
lested, all their property of every kind, and shall be 
protected therein. They shall be at full liberty to remain 
there, or to remove with all or any part of their effects ; 
and it shall also be free to them to sell their lands, houses, 
or effects, or to retain the property thereof, at their discre- 
tion; such of them as shall continue to reside within the said 
boundary lines, shall not be compelled to become citizens 
of the United States, or to take any oath of allegiance to the 
government thereof ; but shall be at full liberty so to do if 
they think proper ; and they shall make and declare their 
election within one year after the evacuation aforesaid. 
And all persons who shall continue there after the expir- 
ation of the said year, without having declared their in- 
tention of remaining subjects of his Britannic majesty, 
shall be considered as having elected to become citizens 
of the United States. 



162 WISCONSIN 

Article 9 stipulated that 

British subjects who now hold lands in the territories 
of the United States, and American citizens who now 
hold lands in the dominions of his Majesty, shall con- 
tinue to hold them according to the nature and tenure 
of their respective estates and titles therein ; and may- 
grant, sell or devise the same to whom they please. 

Had the inhabitants of Green Bay been directly 
asked of which country they would prefer to be 
citizens, the practically unanimous reply would 
undoubtedly have been Great Britain. Although 
under the treaty they became Americans within a 
year, from having taken no formal steps to remain 
British subjects, they nevertheless, in their wide 
isolation from any seat of government, knew little 
of this arrangement, and continued to consider 
themselves citizens of Great Britain. British trad- 
ers, also, still freely operated west and southwest 
of Mackinac. In fact, for many long years after 
the treaty, affairs went on in substantially the same 
fashion as before. The personnel of such trading 
stations as La Baye, and of the far-scattered trading 
camps, remained unchanged. To all intents and 
purposes, Frenchmen, still clinging to Canadian 
connections and traditions, and in British fur-trade 
employ, occupied Wisconsin almost as completely 
as at any period during the two centuries or more 
of the old regime. 

La Baye being a commercial dependency of 
Mackinac, there was a constant flitting back and 



BRITISH INFLUENCE CONTINUED 163 

forth, in their long bateaux, of fiir-tracle agents 
and voyageurs between the little settlement on the 
Fox and the North West Company's eiitrepbt on 
the island. La Baye's population in 1785 was stated 
to be fifty-six souls. The Langlades, the Grignons, 
the Porliers, the Franks, and the Lawes were the 
principal families, and the others their employees ; 
practically all of them being engaged in the one ab- 
sorbing enterprise of collecting and selling peltries. 
In 1803, nine years after Jay's Treaty, came the 
first official American notice of the existence of the 
village, when Governor William Henry Harrison 
of Indiana Territory (of which Wisconsin was now 
a part) appointed Charles Reaume as justice of the 
peace. A bald-headed, pompous, erratic old French- 
man, ever with an eye to the main chance, Reaurae 
drafted all manner of legal and commercial papers ; 
baptized, married, and divorced his neighbors ; acted 
as a primitive civil judge ; certified indifferently to 
either British or American documents, and was 
general scribe, notary, and civil functionary for 
almost the entire country west of Lake Michigan. 
Many amusing stories of his curious court decisions, 
which recognized no known statutes of the United 
States, have come down to our own day. Wisconsin 
became attached to the new Territory of Illinois in 
1809. Nevertheless Reaume, a picturesque and use- 
ful functionary, evidently quite forgotten by his 
American superiors to the south, long continued to 
exercise unquestioned a rude equity in the Fox 



164 WISCONSIN 

River valley through all political changes, even 
during British military rule in 1814.^ 

Prairie du Chien (or " Prairie des Chiens," as 
the name frequently appears in contemporary docu- 
ments), being much farther south than La Baye, 
was in somewhat closer touch with the seat of 
American territorial government. Its inhabitants 
for the most part allowed themselves, through in- 
action in the matter, to become enrolled as Ameri- 
can citizens a year after the signing of the Jay 
Treaty. At the same time that Reaume received his 
appointment for the Green Bay district, Henry 
Monroe Fisher, a prominent American trader at the 
prairie, received a like commission from the gover- 
nor of Indiana Territory as justice of the peace, 
with the additional duties of captain of militia. 
Fisher, a tall, athletic man of much courage and 
perseverance, but possessed of a violent temper, 
was also sub-Indian agent for the Prairie du Chien 
region, and held firm control over the Sioux, Sauk, 
Foxes, Winnebago, and Menominee, who resorted 
in large numbers to his post. Upon the formation 
of Illinois Territory, Fisher was succeeded both as 
justice and as sub-Indian agent by John Campbell, 
an Irishman, whose amusing methods of court pro- 
cedure much resembled those of Reaume, giving 
rise to tales that still enliven the early legal annals 
of the state. 

Lieutenant Gorrell reported traders on the site 
^ His papers are preserved by the Wisconsin Historical Society. 



BRITISH INFLUENCE CONTINUED 165 

of Milwaukee, a considerable Indian village in 
1763, operating directly from Mackinac rather 
than La Baye. In 1779 Captain Robertson found 
there a trader whom he called " Morong ; " and 
doubtless the mouth of Milwaukee River was 
throughout the second half of the eighteenth cen- 
tury more or less regularly visited by men of this 
type, for it was a favorite native rendezvous. It 
was long claimed that one Mirandeau, a French 
blacksmith and trader, erected a log smithy and 
trading shanty here in 1789 ; but probably this 
date is a decade too early. Certain it is that, in 
1795, Jacques Vieau, an agent of the North West 
Company, opened secondary or " jackknife " trading- 
posts — possibly so called because easily opened or 
closed at will — on the sites of Kewaunee, Sheboy- 
gan, and Manitowoc, and established a permanent 
post at Milwaukee. He regularly wintered there 
until 1818, in that year introducing to the scene 
his son-in-law, Solomon Juneau, first mayor of the 
later city. To the latter has generally been ac- 
corded the honor of being Milwaukee's pioneer ; 
but this is because Juneau was owner of the land 
on which Milwaukee was platted, in 1833, and 
none of the newcomers to that settlement had ever 
heard of Yieau, who many years before retired to 
Green Bay.^ 

^ See "Narrative of Andrew Vieau, Sr.," in Wis. Hist. Colls., 
vol. xi ; and Edwin S. Mack, " The Founding- of Milwaukee," in 
Wis. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1906. 



166 WISCONSIN 

From the earliest historic times there had been 
a steady stream of travel over the well-worn port- 
age plain, a mile and a half in width, between the 
Fox and Wisconsin rivers, on the site of the modern 
city of Portage. No documentary evidence has yet 
been discovered, indicating that under the French 
regime any regular transportation agent was estab- 
lished here. But, as previously related, Jonathan 
Carver found such a person in the autumn of 1766, 
— a French fur-trader called by him " Pinnisance," 
who carried bateaux and cargoes from one water- 
way to the other. This man is identical with the 
Pennesha Gegare of Grignon's " Recollections," ^ 
and the Pennensha commended in Gorrell's journal 
of three years before, as having brought the Sioux 
to the English interest and helped save Fort Ed- 
ward Augustus, at Green Bay, in 1763. Pond found 
" Old Pinnashon" still at work in 1773. Twenty years 
later we have account of a successor in this enter- 
prise, Laurent Barth, whose forwarding equipment 
consisted of a horse and a wheeled barge. But after 
five years of service his evident success attracted a 
competitor, Jean Ecuyer, who gradually crowded 
poor Barth to the wall. In his anxiety for further 
profits, Ecuyer, who had married the daughter of 
a Winnebago chief, opened a trading-post, as had 
Pennesha, and soon himself tasted the fruits of 
competition ; for Vieau came out from Milwaukee 
with a stock of goods and maintained a branch 

1 In Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. iii. 



BRITISH INFLUENCE CONTINUED 167 

here for several summers, being followed (1801) 
by Augustin Grignon and Jacques Porlier of La 
Baye. Barth was succeeded as forwarder by Fran- 
cois le Roy (1810), who did duty for the British 
through the War of 1812-15, — his fees, we learn 
from an old bill of lading, being ten dollars for 
carrying an empty boat from one river to the other, 
and for the cargo fifty cents per hundred weight. 
It is no wonder that by the time traders' goods 
reached the distant camps of Indian hunters they 
were worth almost their weight in gold. In due 
course Joseph Kolette, and lastly Pierre Paquette, 
were carriers at the portage. In 1829 Fort Winne- 
bago was erected at this strategic point, and a 
hybrid settlement sprang up without the walls, the 
kernel of the present agricultural and manufactur- 
ing city of Portage. 

We have seen that La Pointe, on Madelaine Is- 
land, in Chequamegon Bay, attained some importance 
under the old regime ; but it again fell into decay 
during the closing years of the French and Indian 
War. Alexander Henry revived its old-time fur- 
trade in 1765, and the station once more became 
the principal peltry market for the Chippewa 
country. The island reached the height of its pros- 
perity after Michel Cadotte, son of Jean Baptiste, 
established his headquarters here (1800). Taking 
unto wife the daughter of the village chief of the 
Chippewa, he wielded a strong influence over the 
region, as agent first of the North West Company 



168 WISCONSIN 

and later of Astor's American Fur Company. In 
1818 came two shrewd Massachusetts brothers, 
Lyman Marcus and Truman Abraham Warren. 
Marrying Michel's two half-breed daughters, the 
young Warrens soon succeeded their father-in-law, 
became powerful agents of Astor's interests in the 
Northwest, and were the last of the great La Pointe 
fur-traders. To-day, the revenues of dreamy little 
Madelaine Island are chiefly derived from summer 
cottagers from Chicago and St. Louis. 

The continuance of the North West Company's 
domination from Mackinac aroused constant protest, 
both from Americans who wished to enjoy the fruits 
of the fur traffic in that quarter, and from fed- 
eral officials who sought to wean the Indians from 
foreign influence. Between 1795 and 1822 experi- 
ments were made, establishing among the tribes- 
men public trading houses, whereat goods were sold 
at low prices. But official factors were unable to 
give credit, which the improvident savages desired 
far more than low prices — it was the very founda- 
tion of the Indian trade. Moreover, besides anger- 
ing private traders, it was soon discovered that the 
wild hunters felt something akin to contempt for a 
government that descended to keeping a shop and 
haggling over the prices of peltries and cottons. 
The fort traders were in time driven from the mar- 
ket, and this plan of courting native favor was 
abandoned. 

In 1802 Congress ruled that trading licenses 



BRITISH INFLUENCE CONTINUED 169 

were only to be granted to citizens of the United 
States, within a territory which included Mackinac 
but did not extend as far west as Wisconsin. Little 
attempt was made to enforce this regulation until 
1810, and then with small success, save that the 
North West Company withdrew from the island. 
In that year a party of independent British traders, 
interested in Wisconsin stations, determined to run 
the blockade of Fort Mackinac with Canadian 
goods consigned to La Baye merchants. In a large 
bateau, laden with fifty thousand dollars' worth of 
merchandise, the conspirators succeeded in passing 
Mackinac Island at night, without arousing the 
sentry, and successfully landed their cargo at the 
mouth of the Fox.^ 

The previous year John Jacob Astor of New 
York, who had been operating from Montreal as 
an independent trader, and had opened a profitable 
traffic with China, where prices for furs were high, 
founded the American Fur Company, which, aided 
by governmental favor, sought to secure a mono- 
poly of the American fur-trade. Astor's field head- 
quarters were established at Mackinac ; but several 
large traders there, still in the British interest, re- 
mained such powerful rivals that in 1811 he pur- 
chased their interests and established the South 
West Company. 

The trans-Mississippi province of Louisiana had 
been ceded by Spain to France in 1800, and three 
1 Neville and Martin, Historic Green Bay, pp. 137, 138. 



170 WISCONSIN 

years later sold by France to the United States. It 
will be remembered that one of the principal objects 
of the Lewis and Clark exploring expedition of 
1804-06, up the Missouri and down the Columbia 
to the Pacific, was to open to Americans a new fur- 
trade route. The North West traders were found 
to be freely trafficking with the natives of the up- 
per Mississippi, of the Missouri from the Mandan 
villages to the Omaha, and of the vast plains stretch- 
ing to the Saskatchewan on the north. While 
American enterprise soon practically dispossessed 
foreigners from the Missouri itself, the " Nor' 
Westers" for several years thereafter held the 
northern plains. 

This was the situation when Astor's new company 
entered the field. His aim was, by a line of posts, 
to hold the Missouri-Columbia route and dominate 
the trade to the south thereof, as well as to com- 
pete on the Pacific coast with the Nor' West's com- 
mercial fleet. For this latter purpose he organized 
the Pacific Fur Company, in which Canadians freely 
took stock and employment. 

Through the agency of the new company Astor 
now dispatched two expeditions. One, leaving Mon- 
treal in September, 1810, proceeded by sea, around 
Cape Horn, to the mouth of the Columbia. The 
other, under Wilson P. Hunt and Ramsay Crooks, 
two of his most noted lieutenants, departed from 
Montreal on June 10, 1811, and journeyed up the 
Great Lakes to Mackinac, thence over the Fox- 



BRITISH INFLUENCE CONTINUED 171 

Wisconsin route to the Mississippi, then up the 
Missouri and overland to the Columbia. The in- 
numerable hardships of the two cooperating par- 
ties, their final meeting, the building of Astoria at 
the Columbia's mouth, and the subsequent loss of 
that outpost to British rivals, as a result of the 
War of 1812-15, is a thrilling story made familiar in 
American literature through Irving's " Astoria." ^ 

The sagacious Tecumseh's not unnatural revolt, 
in 1811, against American trespassers on Indian 
lands in Indiana, involved many isolated bands of 
Wisconsin Indians, chiefly Chippewa, Winnebago, 
Potawatomi, Sauk, and Foxes. Not a few chiefs of 
some renown among our forest warriors participated 
in the fateful battle of Tippecanoe, on the 7th of 
November. Again was it stoutly believed by North- 
west settlers that Canadian officers had egged the 
natives on, and armed them, but this charge has 
never been substantiated. The fact that the savajres 
were largely using English-made arms was doubt- 
less due to the enterprise of irresponsible Canadian 
traders who were freely circulating through the In- 
dian camps. 

The American government had adopted a weak 
and vacillating tone towards the British, who un- 
doubtedly were overbearing in many ways. A 

^ See also Franch^re's Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest 
Coast, and Ross's Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon, in 
Thwaites, Early Western Travels (Cleveland, 1904-07), vols, vi 
and vii respectively. 



172 WISCONSIN 

variety of complications, not necessary here to re- 
hearse, had aroused popular clamor on our side of 
the water to such an extent that war was inevitable. 
By the act of June 18, 1812, hostilities were de- 
clared at Washington. A month later Mackinac 
was captured by the enemy. 

In Wisconsin the principal event of the War of 
1812-15 was a rather farcical invasion by British 
troops. General William Clark, the famous ex- 
plorer, and a younger brother of General George 
Rogers Clark, was at that time governor of Mis- 
souri Territory, and as such military commandant 
in the upper valley of the Mississippi. Late in the 
autumn of 1813 he dispatched to Prairie du Chien, 
to guard the western approach to the Fox- Wiscon- 
sin trade route, an expedition consisting of about 
a hundred and fifty regulars and militiamen, com- 
manded by Lieutenant Joseph Perkins. Erecting 
a stockade here, which he called Fort Shelby, Per- 
kins divided his force between the fort and the 
supposedly bullet-proof gunboat that had trans- 
ported them hither from St. Louis. The garrison 
ashore was protected by six pieces of cannon ; the 
gunboat, anchored in the middle of the Mississippi, 
opposite the stockade, mounted fourteen. 

The village of Prairie du Chien itself was di- 
vided in interest. The majority of the French 
traders and hahitans^ while cautious, appeared to 
be pro-British in their sympathies — young Michel 
Brisbois and Joseph Rolette openly so. But Nicho- 



BRITISH INFLUENCE CONTINUED 173 

las Boilvin, who had succeeded Campbell as Ameri- 
can Indian agent, managed to secure the support 
of many of his neighbors, red and white, and was 
substantially aided by Jacrot, one of the traders. 

Meanwhile, Robert Dickson, a prominent Nor' 
West trader — just now British "agent and su- 
perintendent of Western nations," with Chicago 
and La Baye as his rendezvous — was collecting 
throughout the winter at Garlic Island, in Lake 
Winnebago, a considerable body of Indians, largely 
Winnebago, with the view of aiding a proposed 
British attack on Fort Shelby in the spring. From 
his camp spies were frequently dispatched to 
Prairie du Chien, Milwaukee, and the Illinois 
country, and news of American movements was 
also received by him from correspondents in 
Mackinac and La Baye. By the middle of April 
Dickson proceeded with his followers to the Fox- 
Wisconsin portage, and began the task of massing 
at that rendezvous still another body of Indian 
allies. 

At La Baye, a community wholly British in its 
sympathies, as might be expected, Captain James 
Pullman, from Fort Mackinac, was busy organiz- 
ing a small militia company among the hahitans, 
his lieutenants being the traders Louis Grignon 
and John Lawe. The thirty members of this com- 
mand, chiefly voyageurs in Grignon's employ, were 
classed in the muster as " almost all old men unfit 
for service." 



174 WISCONSIN 

War parties depending upon Indian allies were 
always laggard in their movements. It was June 
28 before Colonel Robert McDouall, tlie Mackinac 
commandant, could get his main expedition started 
from the island. Under the leadership of Major 
William McKay, it consisted of a hundred and 
thirty-six Sioux and Winnebago ; some seventy- 
five voyageurs under their bourgeois, Joseph Ro- 
lette of Prairie du Chien and Thomas G. Anderson, 
both commissioned as captains, and about twenty 
of the Michigan Fencibles Qiabitan militia), under 
Pullman. 

In six days the flotilla reached La Baye, where 
the party were joined by Grignon and Lawe's raw 
recruits and a hundred savages. At the Fox- 
Wisconsin portage, Dickson and his Sioux, Win- 
nebago, Menominee, and Chippewa bands joined 
them, the allied forces now numbering six hundred 
and fifty, of whom all but a hundred and twenty 
were Indians, who, McKay afterwards reported, 
" proved to be perfectly useless." 

Upon July 17 McKay's motley crew reached 
the prairie, to find the expectant Americans appar- 
ently well fortified. The outlook seemed dubious 
to him ; nevertheless within half an hour of his 
arrival he boldly summoned Perkins to " surrender 
unconditionally, otherwise defend yourself to the 
last man." The American promptly replied that 
he accepted the latter alternative. 

The siege began at once. A three-pounder can- 



BRITISH INFLUENCE CONTINUED 175 

non, which McKay had brought with him chiefly 
for the purpose of awing his savage allies, was for 
three hours employed in firing eighty-six shot. A 
skillful artilleryman was in charge, and two thirds 
of these hit the gunboat in the river, which replied 
vigorously ; but, pressed too closely, the vessel finally 
ran in behind an island and then escaped down- 
stream. It was followed by French and Indians in 
canoes, who pestered the fugitive craft as far as the 
rapids at Rock Island, where a fortified American 
keel-boat was met coming up-stream, and the British 
allies were frightened off. 

During this episode the Indian camp followers, 
bent on loot, plundered the village houses, irre- 
spective of the sympathies of their owners, and 
kept up a noisy but ineffectual fire on the fort. A 
desultory artillery and musketry duel was main- 
tained throughout the 18th and the 19th. At six 
in the evening of the latter day McKay's ammuni- 
tion was running short. He had but six rounds 
left for his three-pounder, and was just preparing 
to send these into the fort red-hot, with a view to 
setting it afire, when to his surprise and very great 
relief a white flag was run up on the stockade. 

Perkins now offered to surrender, provided the 
Indians were prevented from ill-treating the garri- 
son. McKay stipulated to this effect; but while he 
was successful in carrying out his promise, the sav- 
ages were so eager for scalps that supplication, 
threats, and constant vigilance on the part of the 



176 WISCONSIN 

British alone saved the incident from culminating in 
a massacre. The Americans had lost five killed and 
ten wounded on board the boat, and three wounded 
in the fort ; the allies do not appear to have suf- 
fered any casualties. A large stock of ammunition, 
provisions, and armaments fell into the hands of 
the captors ; but so difficult was it to safeguard the 
prisoners from the bloodthirsty tribesmen, that 
Perkins and his men were given back their arms 
and sent down the river to St. Louis. As for the 
stockade, it was repaired, and rechristened Fort 
McKay. 

McKay had intended, after ousting the Ameri- 
cans from Prairie du Chien, to drop down the 
Mississippi to the mouth of the Illinois, and by 
ascending^ that stream to attack the American fort 
at Peoria. The Americans were so strong at Rock 
Island, however, that he abandoned this project 
as impracticable. He even considered his posi- 
tion at the prairie as untenable. An attack by a 
fleet of American gunboats was momentarily ex- 
pected ; but it never came, for on their part the 
authorities at Rock Island and St. Louis had re- 
ceived exaggerated reports concerning the strength 
of the invading expedition, and would not make 
the venture. 

On the 10th of August McKay left for Macki- 
nac, taking with him some of the Indians, fur- 
trade militia, and regulars, and leaving Captain 
Anderson in command, the latter being afterwards 



BRITISH INFLUENCE CONTINUED 177 

relieved by Captain Andrew H. Bulger of the 
regulars. Upon the closing day of December Bul- 
ger proclaimed martial law within his jurisdiction. 
This action was occasioned by the fickle character 
of the French along the Mississippi, who played 
fast and loose with him according to varying re- 
ports of the progress of the war ; while within the 
fort the poor commandant was worried by the mu- 
tinous conduct of the Fencibles, who grew restive 
over the dull round of garrison duty. The resident 
French traders also gave Bulger much annoyance ; 
they fretted under military rule, and Rolette in 
particular was out of favor at headquarters. The 
winter was further marked at Fort McKay by 
many and weary councils with delegations of visit- 
ing Indians, who adopted this diplomatic method 
of preying on the British stores. 

Upon the 24th of December (1814), at Ghent, 
Great Britain and the United States signed a 
treaty of peace. The news did not reach Bulger 
until the following 20th of May. On the 22d he 
formally announced to the Indians, amid much 
ceremony, the terms of the treaty, and the follow- 
ing day notified Governor Clark of his acceptance 
of the situation. The latter requested the captain 
to await the arrival from St. Louis of a detach- 
ment of troops to which the post could formally be 
surrendered. But Bulger understood his late sav- 
age allies well enough to know that when they saw 
the British actually turning over the establishment 



178 WISCONSIN 

to the American troops, without lifting a finger to 
prevent it, the former would be dubbed old women 
and cowards, and their retreat to Mackinac un- 
doubtedly be marked by plunder and maltreat- 
ment. He therefore pulled down his flag on the 
24th, and under shelter of a plausible excuse to the 
Indians beat as hasty a retreat as dignity would 
allow. At Mackinac he turned over to the Ameri- 
can commandant whatever of captured arms and 
stores remained in his possession — " it being im- 
practicable to send them to Saint Louis," and has- 
tened on to Canada. 

Thus ignominiously ended the British regime in 
Wisconsin, fifty -four years after the arrival of Gor- 
rell, and thirty-two after its nominal surrender to 
the United States. Henceforth the country between 
Lake Michigan and the Mississippi River was 
American territory in fact as well as in name. 



CHAPTER VIII 

AMERICAN DOMINATION ESTABLISHED 

While throughout the United States at large 
the result of the War of 1812-15 was hailed with 
rejoicing, very different were the sentiments aroused 
by this event in Wisconsin, where we have seen 
that the French regime was still practically in 
vogue. Bourgeois^ hahitans, and half-breeds had 
freely been employed by the British, who fostered 
the all-pervading fur-trade, and had at last learned 
to be liberal and indulgent to their Indian allies. 
The British departed from our territory with re- 
gret, and both Creoles and aborigines were equally 
reluctant to witness the advent of the " Boston- 
nais " into their beloved land. It was recogfnized 
that Americans were quite out of tune with the 
easy-going methods of the people who had domi- 
nated Wisconsin for upwards of a century and a 
half; moreover, the newcomers were an agricult- 
ural folk, bent on fast narrowing the limits of the 
hunting grounds. French Canadians felt that their 
interests were identical with those of the savages, 
who found that there was no room for them along- 
side the Anglo-Saxon settler ; hence we find in the 
familiar correspondence of the time a bitter tone 



180 WISCONSIN 

toward the victors, who were regarded as intruders, 
and covetous disturbers of existing commercial and 
social relations. 

Mackinac and its dependencies were not formally 
transferred to the Americans until July 18, 1815.^ 
Soon after this event, Green Bay — thenceforth 
" La Baye " was but a reminiscent term among the 
older French — was visited by its first American 
official under the new order of public affairs, 
Colonel John Bowyer, Indian agent. This was a 
fortunate appointment. A short, stout, elderly man, 
with French blood in his veins, he had a pleasant 
yet impressive manner that quite won the hearts 
of his people, white and red. At about the same 
time a government trading-post, or " factory," — 
in accordance with the policy of Indian manage- 
ment already alluded to, — was opened under the 
charge of Major Matthew Irwin. The very nature 
of his office, however, aroused the opposition of 
this old-time fur-trading community, and from the 
first he was in ill favor with the people. 

A year later (August 7, 1816), government 
having determined to safeguard the American fur- 
trade in this quarter, four vessels arrived in port, 
bearing Colonel John Miller and several companies 
of the Third Infantry. They at once erected " on 

^ When Colonel McDouall, the British commandant at 
Mackinac, reluctantly retired from that Malta of the Northwest, 
he built a fort on Drummond Island, at the mouth of River St. 
Mary's, territory soon thereafter found to belong to the United 
States. 



AMERICAN DOMINATION ESTABLISHED 181 

the west of Fox River, a mile from its mouth," 
Fort Howard, named for General Benjamin How- 
ard, commandant of the West during the war just 
concluded, who had died at St. Louis two years pre- 
vious. Blockhouses of logs, bearing small cannon, 
guarded the angles of a timber stockade thirty feet 
in height, inclosing barracks and officers' quarters, 
while some additional buildings were constructed 
just without the walls. 

Green Bay was, at this time, described as an at- 
tractive waterside settlement, containing from for- 
ty-five to forty-eight families, all of them avowedly 
British subjects. The prosperous fur-traders who 
ruled the village appeared at first to take so hos- 
tile an attitude toward the American officials that 
Irwin, the principal object of dislike, recommended 
their expulsion. This drastic course was, however, 
not adopted, for the traders had the support of 
their powerful employer, the American Fur Com- 
pany. The pliant Creoles were finally allowed, 
doubtless not without some display of humor, to 
take oath to the effect that their aid to the British 
during the recent hostilities had been but a neces- 
sary yielding to " the tyranny and caprice of the 
reigning power and its savage allies." Thus aver- 
ring, they were tardily converted into American 
citizens, quite without reference to the provisions 
of Jay's Treaty of twelve years before, which had 
been annulled by war. 

Upon June 21 of the same year (1816), four 



182 WISCONSIN 

companies of riflemen, under Brigadier-General 
Thomas A. Smith, landed at Prairie du Chien 
and began the erection of a post on the site of 
Fort McKay. This stronghold, also consisting of 
squared-log blockhouses connected by a stockade, 
and designed to accommodate five companies, was 
called Fort Crawford, in honor of William Harris 
Crawford, then federal secretary of the treasury. 
The public trading house in connection with the 
outpost was in charge of John W. Johnson of 
Maryland. During the first three years the mili- 
tary authorities were accused of undue harshness 
to British sympathizers in the district, such as 
Brisbois and Rolette, and there was much friction. 
But eventually a kindlier spirit prevailed, as Amer- 
icans and Creoles became better acquainted with 
and more tolerant of each others' peculiarities. 
Astor's agents, many of them having large exper- 
ience with the Canadian French, soon obtained a 
firm foothold throughout Wisconsin by adopting 
the complacent methods by which Nor' Westers 
had won the hearts of these mercurial people. 

In a council at St. Louis, upon November 3, 
1804, the Sauk and Fox tribes ceded to the United 
States, for the paltry annuity of a thousand dol- 
lars, fifty million acres of land, comprising in gen- 
eral terms the eastern third of the present State of 
Missouri, and the territory lying between Wiscon- 
sin River on the north, Fox River of the Illinois 
on the east, Illinois River on the southeast, and 



AMERICAN DOMINATION ESTABLISHED 183 

Mississippi River on the west. This enormous 
tract contained not only the rich lead-mining dis- 
trict to which allusion has already been made, but 
some of the most fertile soil in the Middle West. 
In the succeeding chapter we shall find that a 
clause in this treaty, allowing the savages to remain 
upon the land until it was disposed of to individual 
settlers, gave excuse for the Sauk uprising of 1832, 
known as the Black Hawk War. 

Owing to the alliance of the savages with Eng- 
land during the late war, this cession of 1804 was, 
upon May 13, 1816, formally "recognized, estab- 
lished, and confirmed" by the Sauk and Foxes. 
But the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi, who 
were present at the series of peace councils being 
held during that summer at St. Louis, stoutly con- 
tended that their own rights within this huge grant 
had been ignored by the Sauk and Foxes. To end 
this contention, a treaty was concluded with the 
objectors on August 24, by which, on consideration 
of a thousand dollars' worth of goods, they relin- 
quished their claims to so much of the tract as lay 
^' south of a due west line from the southern ex- 
tremity of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi Kiver," 
— substantially, the Illinois section ; and to them 
was ceded outright by the United States '* all the 
land contained in the aforesaid cession of the Sacs 
and Foxes which lies north of " said line, — includ- 
ing that lying in the present Wisconsin. There 
was, however, exempted for the federal government 



184 WISCONSIN 

a lead-mine reservation eight leagues square, " on 
or near to the Ouisconsin and Mississippi rivers." 
The Sauk and Foxes, still a proud and highly sen- 
sitive peo^ile, quite naturally objected to this cava- 
lier treatment, which left them without authority 
for even a temporary abiding-place east of the 
Mississippi, save so far as they might find one 
within this mining reservation. Under these sev- 
eral conventions all prisoners were mutually given 
up, the tribes being placed on the same footing with 
the federal government that they occupied before 
the war. 

At the Wisconsin Creole settlements of Green 
Bay and Prairie du Chien, the presence of Ameri- 
can troops brought added interest to life. The for- 
mer, in particular, was a typical frontier garrison 
town, with the especial distinction that in the main 
the military and civil officials were in race and 
temperament far removed from the people they 
ruled. Indeed, although courtesies came soon to be 
exchanged between townsmen and soldiery, several 
years were to elapse before a spirit of true cama- 
raderie prevailed between the inhabitants and the 
little army of occupation. 

During the period of navigation there was, as in 
the French and British regimes, frequent business, 
social, and official communication with Mackinac, 
the principal entrejwtoi the fur-trade and military 
headquarters for the upper lakes. Long bateaux 
propelled by soldiers and voyogeurs would, in fine 



AMERICAN DOMINATION ESTABLISHED 185 

weather, make the distance of two hundred and 
forty miles in five days ; but if storms arose, neces- 
sitating delays in camp to await calm water, six 
and even seven might be occupied in the voyage. 
Such expeditions were usually occasions of much 
jollity, of which interesting contemporary descrip- 
tions have been preserved for us.^ Somewhat simi- 
lar boat trips were not infrequent over the Fox- 
Wisconsin route between Prairie du Chien and 
Green Bay, consequent upon exchanges of officers 
or garrisons, or in the conduct of the fur-trade. 

But for nearly six months in the year Green Bay 
was ice-bound and almost isolated : wholly so from 
Mackinac, and only connected with Prairie du 
Chien, Chicago, and other southern outposts by 
overland Indian trails winding deviously through 
dense forests, across wind-swept prairies, or fol- 
lowing closely the banks and beaches of rivers and 
lakes. The pedestrian mail carrier, — either alone 
or with an Indian companion, — limited to a bur- 
den of sixty pounds, would occupy a month in 
making the round trip between Green Bay and 
Chicago, and the hardships and dangers exper- 
ienced on the way were such as none but men of 
the toughest fibre could endure.^ The Eastern mail 

^ See Mrs. H. S. Baird, " Early Days oh Mackinac Island," in 
Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xiv. 

2 The " Narrative of Alexis Clermont," in Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. 
XV, although of a somewhat later period, presents a close picture 
of a wilderness mail carrier's experience any time after the estab- 
lishment of Fort Howard. 



186 WISCONSIN 

came from Detroit but twice a year, being brought 
by a soldier, whose loug and weary overland route 
was by way of Chicago, around the southern bend 
of Lake Michigan. 

The country lying between Lake Michigan and 
the Mississippi River had under the French and 
English been fairly free from disorders. But with 
the coming of the Americans, adventurers and 
social outcasts began slowly to appear in the dis- 
trict, with the inevitable train of violence. Mur- 
ders of whites by Indians came now occasionally to 
be reported ; and among the enlisted men were not 
a few desperate characters, who required the exer- 
cise by their officers of severe measures of repres- 
sion and punishment. 

But apparently the most serious task before the 
gay and often very young garrison officials of Fort 
Howard was the devising of ways and means to 
beguile the tedium of their lives, especially dur- 
ing the severe and protracted winters. Breakfasts, 
dinners, balls, and sledging parties were functions 
frequently mentioned in the social correspondence 
of those days. Among the better class of French 
were several young women, the reputation of whose 
beauty and talent — the fur-traders of early Wis- 
consin not infrequently educated their children at 
Montreal * — has come down to us in the annals of 

1 In 1791 Jacques Porlier was established as a tutor in the 
family of Pierre Grignon ; but it was not until 1817 that a regu- 
lar school was opened in Green Bay — the first by M. and Mme. 



AMERICAN DOMINATION ESTABLISHED 187 

the picturesque old town. The American families, 
both official and professional, — for representatives 
of the bar, of medicine, and of the Church came 
soon upon the scene, — were not behind them in 
social graces. 

The blanketed Indian was ever present, either 
lounging about the fur-trade warehouses or acting 
as domestic servant. In the veins of perhaps most 
of the Creoles of that day, high and low, coursed 
more or less aboriginal blood, which brought no 
stigma. Social distinctions were still sharply- 
drawn, however, between the well-to-do bourgeois^ 
who maintained a retinue of clerks and voyageurs^ 
and the humble hahitan^ placidly cultivating his 
narrow field abutting on the riverside. 

It is not surprising that in such a varied society, 
at that period, and under these picturesque condi- 
tions, the spirit of romance held high sway ; or 
that when men and women of the early day came, 
in more prosaic times, to write their memoirs of 
primitive Green Bay, they invariably dwelt most 
fondly upon the decades immediately following the 
advent of American domination. 

It will be remembered that in 1800 the territory 
now embraced in the State of Wisconsin became a 
part of Indiana Territory. Nine years later Indi- 

Carron, who served but temporarily. Later in the year an English 
school was taught by Thomas S. Johnson of New York, who ex- 
perienced much annoyance at the friction between American and 
Creole children. 



188 WISCONSIN 

ana was reduced to the present limits of that state, 
all that had been lopped from her domain being 
set off as Illinois Territory. After another nine 
years (1818), the State of Illinois was created with 
its existing boundaries, and all of the old North- 
west Territory not included in Illinois, lying west- 
ward of Lake Michigan, was added to Michigan 
Territory. In this manner the future Wisconsin 
became a part of Michigan, whose governor at the 
time was Lewis Cass, a man of unusual mental 
breadth and insight. 

By act of the Michigan territorial legislature, 
approved October 26, 1818, there were estab- 
lished west of Lake Michigan three counties, which 
included all or part of the present Wisconsin: 
Brown, being substantially the eastern half of the 
present state, with Green Bay as its county seat ; 
Crawford, embracing the greater part of the west- 
ern half, with its seat at Prairie du Chien ; and 
Michillimackinac, which included a part of north- 
ern Wisconsin and practically the present upper 
peninsula of Michigan, and stretched from Lake 
Huron to the Mississippi, with its seat " at the 
Borough of Michillimackinac." The following day 
Governor Cass apj^ointed officials to carry on a 
civil government within Brown and Crawford 
counties. As elsewhere in Michigan, each county 
was given a court of quarter sessions, consisting of 
a chief justice and two associates, who were judge 
of probate and justice of the peace respectively. 



AMERICAN DOMINATION ESTABLISHED 189 

The amusing, nevertheless popular, Reaume was 
for a time one of the associates in Brown County, 
still serving in the last-mentioned capacity. There 
were also a court commissioner, a clerk, and a 
sheriff. Many years passed before trained lawyers 
were appointed to judicial positions, it being con- 
sidered sufficient that such officials be men of 
standing in the community ; the wise policy of se- 
lecting for many of the local offices Frenchmen, 
who understood the people, was followed from the 
beginning. 

During the first two years justice was adminis- 
tered under the old French law, the coutiime de 
JParis, which had been guaranteed to the people of 
the old Province of Quebec under the Quebec Act 
of 1774. Substantially, this was the system which 
Reaume had sought to enforce, so far as his limited 
stock of legal learning enabled him ; when neces- 
sary this was supplemented by martial law, admin- 
istered by the British and American garrisons suc- 
cessivel}*. In 1821, however, Michigan Territory 
introduced its own code, a radical change which at 
first wrought considerable confusion and no little 
amusement, particularly at Green Bay, where the 
then chief justice was Jacques Porlier, who, while 
able to read English, could not speak it. 

In January, 1823, Congress established a cir- 
cuit court for the three counties, a term of which 
was to be held in each county during the year. 
Heretofore, cases of capital crime or civil cases 



190 WISCONSIN 

involving over a thousand dollars, as well as writs 
of error, mandamus, etc., had necessarily to be 
tried before the supreme court of the Territory at 
Detroit, which involved long and costly journeys. 
The new court had concurrent civil and criminal 
jurisdiction with the supreme bench, but most 
cases might still, by writ of error, be carried up 
to Detroit. The first session of the circuit court 
was opened at Mackinac in July, under the ad- 
ministration of James Duane Doty, a young man 
twenty-three years of age, who in February pre- 
ceding had been appointed " additional j udge of 
the United States for the Michigan Territory," his 
district extending between the Straits of Mackinac 
and the sources of the Mississippi. In later years 
Doty, who possessed talent and unusual dignity, 
became one of the most conspicuous political leaders 
in Wisconsin Territory. 

Green Bay was first visited by the court in Oc- 
tober, 1824. The prosecuting attorney was Henry 
S. Baird of that settlement, a young Irishman who 
was the first to practice law west of Lake Michi- 
gan, and soon rose to prominence in the new coun- 
try. If not the most important, certainly the most 
interesting business coming before the court at 
this time was the attempted regulation of mar- 
riages between French and Indians. Heretofore, 
these had usually been common-law unions; but 
now no less than thirty-six offenders were form- 
ally indicted and notified that they must be married 



AMERICAN DOMINATION ESTABLISHED 191 

according to either civil or churcli law, or stand 
trial for punishment. This action of the new bench, 
in declaring mutual-consent marriages invalid, and 
their offspring illegitimate, aroused fierce indigna- 
tion among the Creoles, and gave rise to protracted 
litigation in the courts of Wisconsin. Later deci- 
sions generally upheld the common-law agreements 
of the old regime. 

American occupation was disturbing to the Cre- 
oles in another particular. Heretofore, Indian title 
having been acquired by them through either con- 
sent or purchase at an early day, the settlers at 
Green Bay and Prairie du Chien occupied their 
fields " much in the manner of an Indian village, 
the lands being alternately in common, and im- 
proved in detached parts as each should please, 
and this by the common consent of the villagers." 
As a rule the holdings were, as upon the lower 
St. Lawrence and elsewhere in New France, nar- 
row strips running far back from the river, which 
was the common highway. This system of partition 
brought the houses of the Jiahitans close together 
upon the waterside, for purposes of sociability as 
well as for common access to the one avenue of 
intercommunication. 

Exact boundaries were of small account in these 
primitive French-Canadian villages, and Wisconsin 
Creoles had characteristically failed to obtain de- 
finite title to their plots. But now a business-like 
people had come into possession of the country; 



192 WISCONSIN 

settlers were arriving, who sought absolute loca- 
tions, and the federal government determined to 
ascertain and record the limits of the old French 
claims. No other method appearing, it was decided 
to accept as proof of title undisputed evidence of 
" individual and exclusive " occupancy by present 
claimants "between the 1st day of July, 1796, and 
the 3d day of March, 1807." ' 

A commission was therefore established in the 
summer of 1820, with headquarters at Detroit, and 
Isaac Lee, a surveyor, appointed agent for the 
taking of testimony.^ Reaching Green Bay on 
August 24, Lee created considerable commotion 
by announcing his purpose, and bidding the people 
prepare their testimony against his return from 
Prairie du Chien, at which place he arrived Octo- 
ber 2. Twenty-two days sufficed for discovering 
which of the Prairie du Chien claimants were, under 
the rules of the commission, entitled to their houses 
and fields. The Prairie had suffered much, he 

^ In opening- the first circuit court at Mackinac, in July, 1823, 
Judg-e Doty stated at leng-th the qualifications of grand jurors, in 
the course of which he defined freeholders to be all ' ' Those per- 
sons who were in the possession of land in the Michig-an Territory 
in the year 1796, at the time of the surrender of the Posts in this 
country. ... It is understood to have been the intention of the 
Treaty, to secure to these people such quantities or tracts of land 
as they occupied and cultivated at that time, and to give them a 
freehold estate therein." — Doty's MS. Docket Book, in Wiscon- 
sin Historical Library. 

2 See reports and testimony in detail, in American State Papers : 
Public Lands, vol. iv, pp. 851-879. 



AMERICAN DOMINATION ESTABLISHED 193 

found, from the lawlessness of bodies of American 
troops who from time to time had been stationed 
there, and who had occasionally and somewhat 
capriciously evicted many of the inhabitants. Con- 
cerning these, Lee declared that " docility, habitual 
hospitality, cheerful submission to the requisitions 
of any Government which may be set over them, 
are their universal characteristics." 

The agent thereupon hurried back to the same 
task at Green Bay, where, however, he found him- 
self ice-bound for the winter. This experience had 
the advantage of bettering his acquaintance with 
the simple, kindly folk of that quarter, and enlist- 
ing in their behalf his most cordial sympathy. 
Several claims had necessarily to be set aside be- 
cause proof of continuous occupancy as far back 
as 1796 was lacking ; but throughout the report 
it is plainly to be seen that both agent and com- 
missioners were impressed with the possibility of 
injustice even to those whom they felt compelled 
to deny. Not a little litigation ensued, and it was 
several years before the burning question of French 
claims in Wisconsin became merely a matter of 
history. 

At this period, the Chippewa occupied the north- 
ern third of the present Wisconsin, with about six 
hundred hunters, whose trade was chiefly reached 
from Lake Superior by the Ontonagon, Montreal, 
Bad, and Bois Brule rivers. Such of the Sioux as 
were visited by Wisconsin traders from Prairie du 



194 WISCONSIN 

Chien were located on the west bank of the Mis- 
sissippi, and toward its source, but frequently 
ranged into Wisconsin as far as the falls of the 
Black, Red Cedar, and St. Croix. The Sauk and 
Foxes were to be found for the most part in the 
lead district. The Menominee, with four hundred 
hunters, were on the Fox and generally through- 
out northeastern Wisconsin, Black River being 
their western boundary, while the country of the 
Chippewa penned them in upon the north ; Green 
Bay was their chief entrepot. Milwaukee was the 
most important rendezvous of the Potawatomi, 
who extended along the entire west shore of Lake 
Michigan and numbered two hundred hunters. 
The Winnebago sought peltries around Lake Win- 
nebago, up the Fox River to its source, on the 
Wisconsin up to Stevens Point, about the head- 
waters of Rock River, in the region of the Madi- 
son lakes, and northwest to Black River, where 
they often overlapped the Menominee grounds ; 
there were also a few of them on the Mississippi, 
above the mouth of the Wisconsin. 

Until about 1830 the fur-traffic with these several 
tribes continued to be the dominating commercial 
interest in Wisconsin. The American Fur Com- 
pany, now in full control of this section, had intro- 
duced many improvements ; but although officered 
by some of the most acute business men of their 
generation, they were to the last obliged to accom- 
modate themselves to the easy-going methods of 



AMERICAN DOMINATION ESTABLISHED 195 

the Creole and mixed-blood employees, who were 
essential intermediaries in dealing with the abo- 
rigines. 

Mackinac remained the chief entre'pot^ but im- 
portant warehouse agencies were maintained at 
Green Bay, La Pointe, and Prairie du Chien. 
These were generally in the hands of semi-independ- 
ent traders, like Porlier and Grignon at Green Bay, 
and Rolette at the Prairie, whose operations were 
widespread. Their ultimate profits, however, were 
slight, for Astor's establishment contrived through 
its fixed charges and percentages to absorb the lion's 
share. Subsidiary trading-posts — either wintering 
places or still smaller "jackknife" fur-gathering 
stations — were to be found, about the year 1820, 
on the Menominee, Peshtigo, Oconto, and Wolf 
rivers, on Lakes Flambeau, Chetac, Court Oreilles, 
Nemakagon, and Tomahawk, and at many other 
important native rendezvous, such as Oshkosh, 
Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, Two Rivers, 
and Portage. Indeed, very many of the present-day 
cities and villages of the state owe their origin, first 
to old Indian camps upon their sites, next to the 
fur-traders (French, British, or American) who 
assembled thereat, and finally to the agricultural 
settlers or to the pioneer ferrymen or tavern-keep- 
ers who, in the initial days of Americanization, 
established themselves in the neighborhood of these 
little commercial centres. 

In their primitive condition the tribesmen labor- 



196 WISCONSIN 

iously made for themselves clothing, ornaments, 
weapons, implements, and utensils. Their food was 
in large measure obtained by hunting, fishing, and 
rudely cultivating the soil, although at times they 
were forced to resort to the usually plentiful sup- 
ply of fruits, nuts, and edible roots. Indian corn 
(maize) was the principal crop ; but they also 
raised beans, pumpkins, watermelons, and sun- 
flower seeds — and in some states (but not ours), 
tobacco and sweet potatoes. In Wisconsin the 
marshes furnished large crops of wild rice (or oats), 
which when boiled or parched made an excellent 
substitute for maize. 

The introduction of the fur-trade by Europeans 
wrought a serious change in the life and manners 
of the Indians. They were induced to abandon 
much of their agriculture and most of their useful 
village arts. Becoming hunters, they thus took a 
backward step in the long and painful road toward 
civilization. Heretofore they had needed furs only 
for raiment, sleeping mats, and tepee coverings ; 
now, peltries were eagerly sought by the stranger, 
who would exchange for them weapons, cloth, iron 
kettles and tools, ornaments, and other marvelous 
objects of European manufacture, generally far 
better and more efficient than those which they had 
been wont to fashion for themselves. 

Thus the Indians soon lost the arts of making 
clothing out of skins, kettles from clay, weapons 
from stone and copper, and beads (used for both 



AMERICAN DOMINATION ESTABLISHED 197 

ornament and currency) from clam-shells. They 
were not slow to discover that when they hunted, 
their labor was far more productive than of old. 
Comparatively slight effort on their part now en- 
abled them to purchase from the white traders 
whatever they desired. Moreover, the latter 
brought intoxicating liquors, heretofore unknown 
to our savages, but for which they soon acquired 
an inordinate greed, of which advantage was taken 
by charging prices therefor that brought enormous 
profits to the dealers. Aside from this new vice, 
the general result was disastrous to the improvi- 
dent aborigines, for in considerable measure they 
ceased to be self-supporting. They soon came to 
depend on the fur-traders for most of the essentials 
of life ; and so general was the credit system among 
them, the summer's supplies being bought on the 
strength of the following winter's hunt, that tribes- 
men were practically always heavily in debt to the 
traders, which rendered it advisable for them to 
stand by their creditors whenever two rival nations 
were contesting the field. In the end, these con- 
ditions materially assisted in the undoing of the 
Indian. 

The goods used in the forest traffic of the Ameri- 
can Fur Company were of much the same character 
as those brought into the wilderness by the earliest 
French — coarse cloths, blankets, and shawls of 
brilliant hues, cheap jewelry, beads of many colors 
and sizes, ribbons and garterings, gay handker- 



198 WISCONSIN 

chiefs, sleigh and hawk's bells, jews'-harps, hand 
mirrors, combs, hatchets, scalping knives, scissors, 
kettles, hoes, firearms and gunpowder, tobacco, 
pitch for mending bark canoes, and the ever-present 
intoxicant ; which latter masqueraded under many- 
euphemisms, ranging in degree between "fire- 
water" and "the white father's milk." Brought 
to Mackinac, at first by canoes and bateaux and 
later by sailing vessels, — after 1821, by occasional 
steamers, — the cargoes were there divided and dis- 
tributed to the several larger agencies, whence the 
bales ultimately found their way to the farthest 
trading " shanties." It is estimated that " in 1820 
between $60,000 and $75,000 worth of goods was 
brought annually to Wisconsin for the Indian 
trade." ^ This doubtless was the heyday of the 
traffic, which thenceforth, as American agricultural 
settlement slowly developed, and lead-mining came 
to be an important industry, began gradually to 
dwindle, both actually and relatively. 

1 F. J. Turner, " The Indian Trade in Wisconsin," in Johns 
Hopkins University Studies, vol. ix, p. 606. 



CHAPTER IX 

LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 

It will be remembered that in 1804 the Sauk 
and Fox claimants of the large lead-bearing region 
in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Missouri ceded that 
tract to the United States ; but by a clause in the 
treaty they were permitted to occupy their old 
camping-places until such time as the land was dis- 
posed of by the federal government to actual set- 
tlers. Although this sale was in 1816 confirmed by 
these two tribes, the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Pota- 
watomi now advanced a claim to joint ownership 
with them in the grant. To the three protestants 
was thereupon ceded by the United States — quite 
ignoring the Sauk and Foxes — all that portion 
lying north of the latitude of the southernmost bend 
of Lake Michigan, with the exception of a large 
lead-mine reservation abutting on the Wisconsin 
and Mississippi rivers. 

We have also seen that French, Spanish, and 
British miners, chiefly connected with the fur-trade, 
had in turn taken much ore from the country. 
Americans, as well, conducted desultory operations 
within the district during the Revolutionary War, 
and thereafter. Indeed, access to the lead mines 



200 WISCONSIN 

was from the earliest times of the white conquest 
eagerly sought, for neither military nor fur-hunt- 
ing enterprises could exist without material for 
bullets. 

In 1809 the first shot tower .in the region was 
erected at Herculaneum, Missouri. Two years fol- 
lowing, Indian Agent Boilvin, at Prairie du Chien, 
reported that thriftj-^ Sauk and Fox Indians on the 
east side of the Mississippi River, below that ham- 
let, and Iowa tribesmen on the west side, had 
" mostly abandoned the chase, except to furnish 
themselves with meat, and turned their attention 
to the manufacture of lead." In 1810 they had in 
their rude furnaces smelted 400,000 pounds of 
metal, which they exchanged for goods, partly with 
venturesome Americans, but mostly with Canadian 
traders, who were continually inciting them to op- 
position against the former. He suggests that the 
federal government would be wise to introduce 
among them a blacksmith and civilized tools, and 
thereby counteract Canadian influence. A few 
years later a St. Louis lead-dealer bought at one 
time from Indians in the district around the pre- 
sent Galena, Illinois, seventy tons of metal. As for 
ousting the Canadians, this long proved impossible. 
Up to 1819, several American traders who had 
sought to compete with them among the Sauk and 
Fox miners, paid the penalty of their lives. It was 
believed by the Indians, and in this opinion they were 
amply justified by events, that if American cupid- 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 201 

ity were aroused by the richness of the deposit, the 
latter would, under the treaty of 1804, promptly 
attempt to dispossess the natives. 

By 1819, American control over the trans-Lake 
Michigan country had become firmly established. 
Thenceforth we hear little of the Canadian traders, 
and American miners were now freely operating 
in the lead district, independently or in conjunction 
with Indians. In June and July of that year. Major 
Thomas Forsyth, Indian agent for the Sauk and 
Foxes, made a voyage from St. Louis to the Falls 
of St. Anthony, and reported upon " the num- 
ber, situation, and quality of all lead mines be- 
tween Apple Creek and Prairie du Chien." Con- 
tractors for army and Indian supplies were at this 
time frequently passing the mines, on their way be- 
tween St. Louis and Prairie du Chien, and Green 
Bay and Mississippi points, and both Indian and 
white miners found ready customers for their 
lead. 

Leases of lead lands in Missouri had been granted 
by the federal government as early as 1807, but 
until 1822 mining in Wisconsin and Illinois was 
intermittent, individual, and without system. In 
the latter year a thrifty Kentuckian, Colonel James 
Johnson, secured a lease of a part of the present 
site of Galena, and under strong military protec- 
tion, with competent implements and miners, aided 
by negro slaves, began operations on a scale here- 
tofore unknown in the lead country. 



202 WISCONSIN 

Johnson's success at once attracted a horde of 
squatters and prospectors from Missouri, Kentucky, 
and Tennessee, while many came from southern 
Illinois. Few of the newcomers paid much atten- 
tion to governmental regulations. Such as secured 
leases suffered from encroachments, and the conse- 
quent disputes were disastrous to many. In 1823 
there were thirteen lessees who had established a 
considerable mining colony, but unlicensed plants 
could be numbered by the score. So unsatisfactory 
was the leasing system, and so slight the resultant 
revenue, that in 1846 Congress abolished it and 
thereafter the lands were sold in open market. 

Upon the 1st of July, 1825, about a hundred 
persons were reported to be employed in mining in 
the Galena district. By August of the next year, 
this population had increased to 453. It was esti- 
mated that in Missouri, however, where the mines 
were privately owned and prospectors sharply or- 
dered off, two thousand men were thus engaged, — 
" miners, teamsters, and laborers of every kind 
(including slaves)." In 1827 the name Galena was 
applied to the principal settlement. Two years 
later the heaviest immigration began, reaching 
well up into the present Wisconsin ; and from that 
time forward the lead region lying north and south 
of the Illinois-Wisconsin boundary was the centre 
of a great industry, which soon came quite to 
overshadow the now declining fur-traffic of earlier 
days. 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 203 

The rush of prospectors and speculators into the 
lead-mining country of Illinois and Wisconsin was 
accompanied by scenes and conditions similar in 
character to those obtaining in the later silver and 
gold-mining camps of California, the Rocky Moun- 
tains, the Black Hills, and Alaska. Dozens of the 
old Indian trails reaching northward from central 
Illinois were soon converted into highways for Con- 
cord coaches and lumber-wagon expresses. Men 
poured into the district on foot and by Mississippi 
River boat, on horseback and by team, from all 
sections of the East and West. New England, 
New York, the Middle and Southern states, and 
Europe were freely represented ; Cornishmen, om- 
nipresent in mining operations, began to arrive 
as early as 1827. In a few months prospectors were 
picking holes all over southwestern Wisconsin, and 
soon isolated log shanties and stockades for pro- 
tection against possible assaults of resident Indians 
were familiar objects in the landscape. Men worth 
their thousands bivouacked along the roads and 
native foot-trails, alongside of well-armed vagabonds 
of every grade. A traveler of that day ^ tells us 
that " to come upon a couple of rough fellows sit- 
ting on a log or stone, playing old sledge for each 
other's last dollar, was no uncommon experience." 

The Sauk and Foxes and occasional Winnebago, 
who through several generations had, in their 

^ "Narrative of Morg-an L. Martin " in Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. 
xi, p. 398. 



204 WISCONSIN 

crude fashion, done a good share of the mining and 
smelting in the district, were now rudely pushed 
aside by the army of new arrivals whom they could 
not withstand. Native shafts were boldly appropri- 
ated by armed whites, who came to stay ; and sink- 
holes that the former could no longer oj)erate with 
their rude tools were reopened and found to be 
exceptionally rich. Mushroom towns sprang up all 
over the district ; the " diggings " were fitted out 
with modern appliances ; smelting furnaces were 
erected at convenient points ; deep-worn native 
paths became ore roads. The aboriginal miner 
was quickly crushed beneath the wheels of civil- 
ization. 

The Indians of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, 
and Illinois — the Chippewa, Sauk, Foxes, Meno- 
minee, Iowa, Sioux, Winnebago, and a portion 
of the Ottawa and Potawatomi — had long en- 
gaged spasmodically in intertribal warfare. The 
United States government felt that if a stop were 
not put to these disturbances, they might " extend 
to the other tribes, and involve the Indians upon 
the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Lakes in 
general hostilities." By a treaty concluded at 
Prairie du Chien on August 19, 1825, it was agreed 
between the respective chiefs that " There shall be 
a firm and perpetual peace between the Sioux and 
Chippewas ; between the Sioux and the confeder- 
ated tribes of Sacs and Foxes ; and between the 
loways and the Sioux ; " and definite boundaries 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 205 

were established between tbeir hunting: ransfes. 
The participating chiefs nevertheless took umbrage 
at the American commissioners, William Clark 
and Lewis Cass, whom they accused of cold for- 
mality and of parsimony, for failing liberally to 
ply them with "milk" and presents, after the 
fashion of their old-time British father ; moreover, 
they were not allowed to ratify the new treaty by 
a savage carousal. The result was that the tribes- 
men returned home with their natural dislike of 
the unsympathetic Americans much intensified. 

The succeeding winter was marked by various 
disorders. Predatory expeditions were reported 
between Chippewa and Sioux ; while both Sioux 
and Winnebago were growing offensive in their 
attitude toward American settlers and miners, and 
some of the few French traders remaining in the 
region were busy circulating among the forest bar- 
barians rumors that another war was imminent 
between England and the United States. On their 
part, the Winnebago were irritated because two of 
their warriors were imprisoned at Fort Crawford 
for some petty offenses. During the summer of 1826 
there was much uneasiness among the whites on 
both sides of the upper Mississippi, and the garri- 
son of Prairie du Chien was expecting a native 
attack. 

In the midst of these alarming rumors and actual 
disturbances, the federal war department ordered 
that Fort Crawford be abandoned, its garrison being 



206 WISCONSIN 

dispatched to Fort Snelling, which had been built 
six years previous in the neighborhood of the pre- 
sent St. Paul, some two hundred miles farther up the 
Mississippi. This withdrawal was upon the request 
of the commandant, Colonel Josiah Snelling, who 
had experienced some personal difficulties with the 
people of Prairie du Chien. Retirement in the face 
of native threats was quite naturally construed by 
the neighboring Winnebago as a confession of weak- 
ness. During the following winter, apparently con- 
vinced that another British- American conflict was 
impending, young Winnebago hot-heads stirred 
themselves into a warlike spirit, and British sym- 
pathizers were in the ascendant. 

Among our North American Indians, while in 
the wild stage, no young man might be accepted 
among the tribesmen as a warrior, and thus a full- 
fledged member of society, until he had taken at 
least one scalp; which accounts for the eagerness 
with which Indian youth always welcomed the sug- 
gestion of war. The elders, who had long since won 
their eagle feathers, — one being worn for each scalp 
taken, — and with these acquired some degree of 
wise caution, were apt to advise a waiting policy. 
The young, scoffing such counsel, were almost in- 
evitably the first disturbers of peace in the long and 
bloody story of frontier warfare, generally carry- 
ing the conservatives with them when the enemy 
attempted reprisal. 

Several young Winnebago bucks were, in March, 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 207 

1827, hunting upon Yellow River, twelve miles 
north of Prairie du Chien, on the Iowa side of the 
Mississippi. Coming across the log cabin of one 
Methode, a civilized half-breed from Prairie du 
Chien, who with his family was making maple su- 
gar, the hot-bloods could not resist their passion for 
scalps, and killed the man, his wife, and five child- 
ren. 

While popular excitement over this event was at 
its height in Prairie du Chien, a Sioux contingent 
from west of the Mississippi arrived at the village 
of Red Bird, a petty Winnebago chief whose camp 
was pitched on Black River, near the present vil- 
lage of Trempealeau. The visitors brought a story, 
which quite likely they knew to be false, that the 
two Winnebago prisoners carried from Fort Craw- 
ford to Fort Snelling had been executed by white 
soldiers. The effect of this malicious tale was to 
drive Red Bird and his little band of warriors into 
a vengeful frenzy. To the quiet satisfaction of the 
American-hating Sioux, the villagers set out to take 
at least four white scalps in retaliation, for the tribal 
code of reprisal demanded that for each scalp taken 
from their people two must be obtained from the 
enemy. 

There were not lacking other incentives as well. 
The continued inhospitality of the Indian agent 
at Prairie du Chien, who closely calculated his 
expenses, irritated them, and they conjured up 
contrasting pictures of British generosity. They bit- 



208 WISCONSIN 

terly resented, too, being driven from the lead-mine 
region, and the often brutal treatment awarded 
them by American miners. These and a hundred 
other annoyances, some petty and others serious, 
combined to arouse native animosity and thus 
kindle the flame of the incipient uprising. 

Just at this time there were being propelled up 
the Mississippi two keel-boats laden with provi- 
sions dispatched from St. Louis to Fort Snelling. 
Red Bird's followers boarded the craft, as was cus- 
tomary in those waters, and with a semblance of 
friendliness, a subterfuge of which the Indian was 
master, sold venison and native trinkets to the crew. 
It was noticed by the savages that the boatmen 
were practically unarmed, but the former lacked 
the nerve to attack. All along the west bank, as far 
as the fort, the Sioux made no attempt to hide their 
disaffection, but they also failed to open active hos- 
tilities, and allowed the cargoes to reach their 
destination. 

Red Bird, with Wekau and two others of his 
fighting men, now turned their canoes down river 
to Prairie du Chien, where they hoped for better 
fortune : apparently forgetting that its peaceful 
Creole settlers were firm friends of the aborigines 
and had given them no cause of complaint. It was 
the 26th of June, and many of the men were 
absent in their fields or upon fishing excursions. 
The Winnebago contented themselves with bullying 
some of the women, and then set out for the farm 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 209 

of Registre Gagnier, two miles south of the village. 
Gagnier was an honest, hard-working fellow, son of 
a negro woman and a French voyageiir^ noted for 
his friendliness to Indians. With him were his 
\white wife, two children, and a serving-man named 
IXpcap. Red Bird had long been Gagnier's friend, 
hen^e they were met by cordial greetings. The four 
agents of death calmly sat for hours enjoying the 
mulatto's hospitality, and then, seizing a favorable 
mom int. Red Bird and Wekau killed Lipcap and 
Gagnier, and scalped the latter's infant girl of 
eighteen months. After a desperate struggle, Ma- 
dame Gagnier escaped to the village with her ten- 
year-old boy. The hue-and-cry being now raised, 
the murderers promptly escaped. The scalped child 
was brought back to the settlement, where she sur- 
vived her brutal treatment, grew to womanhood, 
and was the mother of a large family. 

When the fugitives, skulking along the bush- 
grown shores of the Mississippi, arrived at the 
mouth of the Bad Axe, forty miles north of Prairie 
du Chien, they there found a hunting camp of 
nearly forty of Red Bird's warriors. Although but 
three of the required scalps had thus far been 
obtained, the feat was celebrated in a protracted 
drunken debauch. In the afternoon of the third 
day there hove into sight upon the Mississippi the 
foremost of the two plank-armored keel-boats al- 
ready mentioned, now returning to St. Louis. The 
boatmen had aU the way from Fort Snelling been 



210 WISCONSIN 

jeered and threatened by Sioux along the west bank, 
but had been unharmed. When the Winnebago at 
the Bad Axe showed fight, the crew of the forward 
boat in a spirit of bravado ran their craft close in 
toward shore. This was the signal for a heavy fusil- 
lade from the drunken natives, some of whom 
boarded the vessel and ran her on a sandbar. After 
a spasmodic rifle duel lasting for three hours, dusk 
set in, and the boatmen, although obliged to remain 
under cover, now adroitly managed to free their 
craft from the bar, and she was soon borne off by 
the swift current. Nearly seven hundred bullets 
had pierced the boat through and through, yet the 
casualties were slight — on board, two killed out- 
right, and two mortally and two slightly wounded ; 
of the savages, seven were killed and fourteen 
wounded. The rear keel passed the camp at mid- 
night, and was fired on, but escaped unhurt. 

The news of this fierce engagement was promptly 
disseminated from Prairie du Chien, and a wide- 
spread frontier war confidently expected. Militia- 
men and volunteers came pouring into the village 
from the neighboring lead-mine country, which in 
the general panic soon lost half of its white popu- 
lation. The settlers strengthened the old fort, which 
soon was reoccupied by a small battalion from Fort 
Snelling. A full regiment came from Jefferson 
Barracks, near St. Louis, under General Henry At- 
kinson. Early in August, Major William Whistler 
of Fort Howard proceeded up Fox River with a 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 211 

portion of his command. Whistler's progress was 
delayed by his presence at a council held at Grand 
Butte des Morts with the Winnebago, Chippewa, 
and Menominee, regarding lands granted by them 
to certain New York Indians, concerning which 
transaction we shall hear later. At this council, 
concluded August 11, Whistler notified the Win- 
nebago that their security as a tribe wholly lay in 
surrendering Red Bird and Wekau as murderers 
of the Gagnier family. The headmen were given 
to understand that were this done nothing further 
would be said concerning the keel-boat fight. 

Whistler reached the Fox- Wisconsin portage on 
September 1, while Atkinson was with some diffi- 
culty advancing up the swift-flowing Wisconsin 
with the intention of effecting a junction with him 
at this, the heart of the Winnebago country. Imme- 
diately on his arrival. Whistler was notified by an 
Indian runner that at three o'clock in the after- 
noon of the following day the two culprits, who 
were voluntarily surrendering themselves to save 
their tribe from threatened destruction, would ap- 
pear at military headquarters. At the hour agreed 
on, the troops were on dress parade, and with full 
martial honors received the murderers, who ad- 
vanced singing their mournful death-songs. We- 
kau was a rather miserable specimen of his tribe ; 
but the young Ked Bird, a tall, manly fellow, acted 
with exquisite dignity, and appeared clothed in the 
picturesque regalia of a chief. 



212 WISCONSIN 

In judging the motives and conduct of Red Bird, 
justice demands that we do so strictly according to 
the view-point of his own race, however mistaken 
we of ours may consider it. Abiding by the stern 
ethics of his people, he had in the scalp-taking acted 
impersonally as the supposed avenger of his tribe. 
His methods undoubtedly were cruel and treacher- 
ous, but they accorded strictly with the rules of war- 
fare in which he and countless generations of his 
forbears had carefully been trained, and which they 
deemed eminently proper — for in war the end and 
not the means concerned them. In the eyes of his 
fellows he was now as popular a hero as an}^ 
leader of a forlorn hope. He suffered no qualms of 
conscience. The same lofty purpose that actuated 
him in his vicarious vengeance led him freely to 
offer himself as a tribal sacrifice when this alone 
seemed necessary to prevent the destruction of his 
clansmen by the all-conquering Americans ; and he 
compelled the cowardly and reluctant Wekau to 
join him. This was the spirit in which Whistler 
and his men, as frontier soldiers familiar with the 
savage point of view, regarded the surrender — the 
spirit that gives point and meaning to perhaps the 
most striking picture in Wisconsin history, next 
to the landfall of Nicolet in 1634. 

Upon being imprisoned at Prairie du Chien, the 
chief was relieved of the necessity of wearing irons, 
and given much freedom. Opportunities were 
abundant for his escape, and sympathetic soldiers 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 213 

sometimes seemed to place these in his way; yet 
Ked Bird was too proud to break his promise to re- 
main and stand for trial for his life. A few months 
later he died in prison, of an epidemic then raging 
in the village. 

The murderers of Methode were tried and con- 
demned to death, but received pardon from Presi- 
dent Adams, upon the Winnebago renouncing their 
claim to the coveted lead mines. The following 
year (1828), Fort Winnebago was erected at the 
Portage, with especial reference to keeping that 
tribe in order. 

During and succeeding the Revolutionary War, 
the Stockbridge and Brothertown ^ tribes, by this 
time Christianized and well-advanced towards civ- 
ilization, moved from New England to western 
New York, in the neighborhood of the Oneida and 
Munsee. But soon after 1810 there arose among 
the four tribes a strong desire to seek homes in the 
still farther West. White persons interested in the 
Stockbridge, in particular, expressed solicitude that 
these converts be permanently removed from the 
evil influences radiating from fast-growing settle- 
ments ; and land speculators were eager that the In- 
dian title in that part of New York be extinguished 
as rapidly as possible, consequently they were not 
slow to foster the movement. 

Among the friends of the Stockbridge was Dr. 

1 The Brothertown consisted of remnants of various New Eng- 
land tribes, who had settled near the Stockbridge. 



214 WISCONSIN 

Jedediah Morse, a Presbyterian divine, and father 
of the inventor of the electric telegraph. In 1820, 
Morse was sent into the Northwest by the War 
Department as a special agent to select lands for 
the four tribes. Among other places, he visited 
the Fox River valley, and on July 9 delivered in 
Green Bay probably the first Protestant sermon 
ever heard there. Morse selected this valley as the 
most eligible site, the principal native owners of 
the chosen land being the Menominee and the 
Winnebago. 

At that time there was resident among the 
Oneida an erratic quarter-breed named Eleazer Wil- 
liams, who during the War of 1812-15 had served 
the Americans as a spy among his relatives, the 
Canadian Indians, but who was now an Episcopal 
missionary. Possessed of considerable natural abil- 
ity, and of attractive manners, an Iroquois-English 
translator, and the author of several minor reli- 
gious works, Williams had won a rather wide 
reputation among persons interested in Indian 
ethnology, languages, history, and missions ; he 
was frequently referred to as an authority on these 
subjects. He had also acquired an ascendency over 
certain of his own people, although by some of 
them instinctively mistrusted — and rightly so, for 
while in some respects an interesting and unusual 
character, he lacked sincerity, was self-seeking and 
vainglorious, and perversely untruthful. Always 
a poseur, we now find him assuming leadership in 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 215 

this new phase of native emigration, which he 
eagerly supported from motives of personal ambi- 
tion ; for it appears that he dreamed of a revived 
bat Christianized Iroquois confederacy in the West, 
with himself as its dictator. 

In 1821, Williams, then about thirty-three years 
of age, led to Green Bay a large and enthusiastic 
delegation of New York chiefs and headmen in- 
terested in the project, their conveyance being the 
first steamer to appear upon Lake Michigan. This 
novel craft bore the picturesque name, borrowed 
from the Indians, of Walk-in-the- Water.* The 
long tour of these native pioneers was financed by 
the missionary bodies of the Episcopal and Pres- 
byterian churches and the New York Land Com- 
pany — the last-named representing the speculators 
who wished access to the territory novr occupied by 
the several tribes. In August a treaty was concluded 
with the reluctant Menominee and Winnebago, by 
which was ceded to these New York Indians, for five 
hundred dollars in cash and fifteen hundred dol- 
lars* worth of goods, a strip some four miles in 
width, crossing Fox River at right angles, with 
Little Chute as the centre. 

This grant satisfied none save Williams. The two 
Wisconsin tribes quickly repented the bargain, and 
the New Yorkers deemed it a paltry exchange for 
their present homes. As for the missionary, he was 

* Constructed in 1818, the first steamer on Lake Erie ; lost in a 
storm, near Buffalo, in November, 1821. 



216 WISCONSIN 

loudly condemned by all. Another council was 
therefore held by him at Green Bay, in September 
and October of the following year (1822). From 
this conference the Winnebago withdrew in disgust ; 
but the Menominee, yielding to Williams's sj)ecious 
arguments and easy promises, finally agreed to ac- 
cept the New York tribesmen as joint owners with 
themselves of all Menominee lands — then embrac- 
ing almost a half of the present Wisconsin. But 
within a twelvemonth the Menominee came bitterly 
to regret their complacency, and there followed 
ten years of confusion and wordy discussion. Con- 
gress had several times to interfere in an attempt 
to quiet the contest. 

Williams and the little band of Oneida who 
clung to his counsels immediately took up their 
residence on Fox Kiver, not far above Green Bay. 
Gradually thereafter, chiefly in 1832, a consider- 
able number of the New York tribesmen moved to 
Wisconsin, — the Stockbridge and Brothertown 
settling to the east of Lake Winnebago, in the 
present Calumet County, and in due course becom- 
ing citizens ; the Oneida and Munsee establish- 
ing themselves upon Duck Creek, near the mouth 
of the Lower Fox, and upon the Oneida reserva- 
tion near Green Bay, but not until recent years 
(1890-93) did they take their lands in severalty 
and assume citizenship. 

The migration had throughout been managed 
so badly and awakened such general discontent 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 217 

amona: both whites and reds, and his own charac- 
ter had been exhibited in so unfavorable a light, 
that Williams's political dreams were necessarily 
at an end ; probably they could not, in any event, 
have been realized. For over twenty years he came 
and went among the Oneida as a missionary, 
although most discriminating persons discredited 
him as crafty and unscrupulous. Suddenly, in 
1849, when in his sixty-first year, the man posed 
in public as Louis XVII, hereditary sovereign of 
France ; he had, however, privately made assertions 
to that effect as early as 1838. 

There seems no reason to doubt that after Louis 
XVI and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were exe- 
cuted in Paris (1793), their son of eight years, the 
dauphin, died two years later (June 8, 1795) of 
ill-treatment and neglect in his cell in the tower of 
the Temple. Sufficient mystery, however, attached 
to the death of young Louis XVII to warrant the 
growth of myth, and during several political up- 
heavals of France there arose in various parts of 
Europe more than two dozen impostors, who sev- 
erally claimed to be the " lost dauphin." The 
theory advanced in each case was, that Bourbon 
adherents had spirited the young prince from his 
prison and substituted a child of meaner clay — 
the little fugitive, with mind weakened by confine- 
ment and bad usage, being thenceforth reared 
among peasant surroundings. Although these 
various pretenders have each in his turn been dis- 



218 WISCONSIN 

credited by competent publicists and historians, 
nevertheless there still exist many Frenchmen who 
appear seriously to believe that the pretensions of 
descendants of at least one of these claimants are 
just, and worthy of their earnest adherence.^ 

The novelty of Williams's assertions created far 
more popular attention in the United States of his 
day than could similar royalist pretensions in our 
more sophisticated times. Embellished with much 
sensational detail, they were in effect that as the 
veritable dauphin, then mentally weak but later 
outgrowing this defect, he had been brought to 
America and given to a somewhat prominent and 
very worthy Indian family of the St. Regis tribe of 
Canada, to rear as their own child. Further, that 
when, in 1841, the young Prince de Joinville, 
third son of Louis Philippe, King of the French, 
was traveling in Canada and the United States, 
he visited Williams's home on Fox River, and pro- 
posed that the latter " abdicate the crown of France 
in favor of Louis Philippe " in return for a splen- 
did establishment either in France or America — 
a proposition promptly rejected by the Wisconsin 
Bourbon, who " though in poverty and in exile, 
would not sacrifice his honor." 

^ Referring to NaundorfP, who died at Delft, Holland, August 
10, 1845, claiming to be Charles-Louis de Bourbon, duke of Nor- 
mandy. There is a considerable literature on the subject, and the 
claims of the family are persistently maintained, their organ 
being a monthly magazine, Revue Historique de la Question Louis 
XVII, established at Paris in January, 1905. 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 219 

Despite his somewhat theatrical fondness for 
mystery, the facts regarding Williams's lineage 
and career were well known to many. His indig- 
nant Indian relatives repudiated his pretensions 
^nd showed their falsity. The color and texture of 
his skin indisputably proved his aboriginal blood. 
He was three years younger than the real dauphin 
would have been. His reputation for veracity had 
long since departed. Nevertheless his features bore 
some resemblance to those of the Bourbons, and 
this was helpful to his deception. The American 
pretender was seriously discussed in thousands of 
homes in this country, and even in Europe at- 
tracted some attention. He died in 1858, his last 
years marked by neglect and by only slight at- 
tempts at self -exploitation. Occasionally, and with 
an air of serious acceptance, irresponsible writers 
still use the fantastic tale, in order to lend "color" 
to Wisconsin annals.^ 

On Rock River, in Illinois, near its junction 
with the Mississippi, there was a considerable Sauk 
village, inhabited by a large band of active sympa- 
thizers with the British, and under the domination 
of Black Sparrow Hawk (commonly called Black 
Hawk), an ambitious, restless, and somewhat dema- 
gogic headman of the tribe. ^ Although himself 

^ The standard authority on this subject is William W. Wight, 
" Eleazer Williams : his forerunners, himself," in Parkman Club 
Papers, vol. i. 

- He was not a chief (an hereditary office), as Ls commonly as- 
sumed — simply a popular leader. 



220 WISCONSIN 

"touching the quill" at both the treaty of 1804 
and that with the Sauk and Foxes in May, 1816, 
he afterwards denied the authority of the tribal 
chiefs to sign away the common lands, thereby 
ignoring his own earlier assent. 

When, in 1816, the federal government treated 
separately therefor with the Ottawa, Chippewa, 
and Potawatomi, and it was found that the lower 
Rock River was south of the prescribed boundary 
line, the majority of the Sauk and Foxes on that 
stream, under the Fox head-chief Keokuk, dis- 
creetly moved to the west of the Mississippi. But 
Black Hawk's " British band," as they were called, 
— two hundred of them had fought under Tecum- 
seh, — continued to hold the old village site, where 
he himself was born and where was the great ceme- 
tery of the tribe ; quite ignoring the fact that their 
tribal rights in the territory were no longer recog- 
nized by the United States, even for the temporary 
abode provided in 1804. 

White squatters, coveting land far beyond the 
frontier of legal entries, still some sixty miles east- 
ward, began to annoy the Hawk as early as 1823, 
burning his lodges while he was absent on the 
hunt, destroying his crops, insulting his women, 
and now and then actually beating him and his 
people. Persistently advised by the tribal chiefs to 
abandon his town to the on-rushing tide of settle- 
ment, he nevertheless obstinately held his ground. 
In the spring of 1830, affairs had reached a crisis. 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 221 

When the British band returned from their win- 
ter's hunt they found their cemetery plowed over, 
for several squatters had now preempted the vil- 
lage site, the cemetery, and the extensive aborig- 
inal planting grounds ; yet a belt of forty miles of 
Indian lands still lay unsurveyed between this and 
the western line of regular settlement. 

The indio^nant Hawk now took his band over- 
land by the great Sauk trail, south of Lake Michi- 
gan, to consult with his friend the British military 
agent at Maiden, in Canada, not far from Detroit. 
He was there advised that the spirit of the treaty 
of 1804 had clearly been violated, and that if he 
persisted in repelling the squatters the govern- 
ment's sense of fair play would surely support him ; 
but the British official evidently had not carefully 
studied the trend of our Indian diplomacy. Thus 
fortified. Black Hawk returned to his village in 
the spring of 1831, his people in a starving condi- 
tion, only to find white intruders more numerous 
and offensive than ever. He thereupon indiscreetly 
threatened them with force if they did not at once 
depart. This was construed as being a " bloody 
menace," and the Illinois militia were promptly 
called out by Governor John Reynolds in a flaming 
proclamation, to " repel the invasion of the British 
band." On June 25, the Hawk cowered before a 
demonstration made at his village by some seven 
hundred militiamen and regulars, and fled to the 
west of the Mississippi, humbly promising never 



222 WISCONSIN 

to return without the express permission of the 
federal government. 

Black Hawk, now a man of some fifty-four years, 
a somewhat remarkable organizer and military 
tactician, and for one of his race broad-minded and 
humane, was nevertheless too easily led by the 
advice of others. He was now beset by young Pota- 
watomi hot-bloods from northeastern Illinois and 
along the western shore of Lake Michigan, scalp- 
hunters from the Winnebago along the upper Rock 
River, and emissaries from the Ottawa and Chip- 
pewa, all of whom urged him to return and fight 
for his rights. Particularly was he influenced by 
a Winnebago soothsayer named White Cloud, who 
throughout was his evil genius. No crop had been 
raised, and the winter in Iowa was unusually harsh, 
so that by early spring the British band were men- 
aced by famine. 

Driven to desperation, and relying on these prof- 
fers of intertribal assistance, the Hawk crossed the 
Mississippi at Yellow Banks, April 6, 1832, with 
five hundred warriors, mostly Sauk, accompanied 
by all their women, children, and domestic equip- 
ment. Their intention was to raise a crop at the 
Winnebago village at Prophet's Town, on Rock 
River, and then if practicable the bucks would 
take the war-path in the autumn. 

But the news of the " invasion " spread like 
wildfire through the Illinois and Wisconsin settle- 
ments. Another fiery proclamation from Spring- 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 223 

field summoned the people to arms, the United 
States was also called on for troops, those settlers 
who did not fly the country threw up log forts, 
and everywhere was aroused intense excitement 
and feverish preparation for bloody strife. 

In an incredibly short time, three hundred regu- 
lars and eighteen hundred horse and foot volun- 
teers were on the march. ^ The startled Hawk sent 
back a defiant message, and retreated up Rock 
River, making a brief stand at Stillman's Creek. 
Here, finding that the promised assistance from 
other tribes was not forthcoming, he attempted to 
surrender on stipulation that he be allowed peace- 
fully to withdraw to the west of the Mississippi. 
But his messengers, on approaching with their 
white flag the camp of a party of twenty-five hun- 
dred half-drunken Illinois cavalry militia, were 
brutally slain. Accompanied by a mere handful of 
braves, the enraged Sauk leader now ambushed 
and easily routed this large and boisterous party, 
whose members displayed rank cowardice ; in their 
mad retreat they spread broadcast through the 
settlements a report that Black Hawk was backed 
by two thousand bloodthirsty warriors, bent on 
a campaign of universal slaughter. This greatly 

^ Abraham Lincoln was the captain of a militia company. Jef- 
ferson Davis was a lieutenant of regulars, nominally stationed at 
Prairie du Chien, but he appears to have been absent on detached 
duty throughout the greater part of the war ; after its close, he 
escorted the captured Black Hawk from Prairie du Chien to Jef- 
ferson Barracks. Zachary Taylor was also an officer of regulars. 



224 WISCONSIN 

increased popular consternation througliout tlie 
West. The name of the deluded Black Hawk 
became everywhere coupled with stories of savage 
cruelty, and served as a household bugaboo. 
Meanwhile, so great was the alarm that the Illi- 
nois militia, originally hot to take the field, now, 
on flimsy excuses, promptly disbanded. 

Black Hawk himself was much encouraged by 
his easy victory at Stillman's Creek, and, laden with 
spoils from the militia camp, removed his women 
and children about seventy miles northeastward, to 
the neighborhood of Lake Koshkonong, near the 
headwaters of Kock Kiver, a Wisconsin district 
girt about by great marshes and not then easily 
accessible to white troops. Thence descending with 
his braves to northern Illinois, where he had spas- 
modic help from small bands of young Winnebago 
and Potawatomi, the Hawk and his friends en- 
gaged in irregular hostilities along the Illinois-Wis- 
consin border, and made life miserable for the set- 
tlers and miners. In these various forays, with 
which, however, the Sauk headman was not always 
connected, fully two hundred whites and nearly as 
many Indians lost their lives. At the besieged 
blockhouse forts (particularly Plum River, in 
northern Illinois) there were numerous instances 
of romantic heroism on the part of the settlers, men 
and women alike ; and several of the open fights, 
like one on the Peckatonica River, are still famous 
in local annals. 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 225 

Three weeks after the Stillman's Creek affair, a 
reorganized army of 3200 Illinois militia was mo- 
bilized, being reinforced by regulars under General 
Atkinson and a battalion of two hundred mounted 
rangers from the lead region, enlisted by Major 
Henry Dodge, then commandant of Michigan 
militia west of Lake Michigan, and in later years 
governor of Wisconsin Territory. The entire army 
now in the field numbered about 4000 effective 
men. Dodge's rangers, gathered from the mines 
and fields, were a free-and-easy set of fellows, des- 
titute of uniforms, but imbued with the spirit of 
adventure and the customary frontiersmen's intense 
hatred of the Indians whom they had ruthlessly 
displaced. While disciplined to the extent of obey- 
ing orders whenever sent into the teeth of danger, 
these Rough Riders of 1832 swung through the 
country with small regard for the rules of the man- 
ual, and presented a striking contrast to the habits 
and appearance of the regulars. 

As the new army slowly but steadily moved up 
Rock River, Black Hawk retired toward his Lake 
Koshkonong base. The pursuit becoming too warm, 
however, he retreated hastily across country, with 
women and children and all the paraphernalia of 
the British band, to the Wisconsin River in the 
neighborhood of Prairie du Sac ; on his way cross- 
ing the site of the present Madison, where he was 
caught up with by his pursuers, now more swift 
in their movements. On reaching the rugged bluffs 



226 WISCONSIN 

overlooking the Wisconsin, he sought again to sur- 
render ; but there chanced to be no interpreter among 
the whites, and the unfortunate suppliant was mis- 
understood. The battle of Wisconsin Heights fol- 
lowed (July 21), without appreciable loss on either 
side. Here the Sauk leader displayed much skill in 
covering the flight of his people across the broad, 
island-strewn river. 

A portion of the fugitives, chiefly women and 
children, escaped on a raft down the Wisconsin, 
but near Prairie du Chien were mercilessly fired 
upon by a detachment from the garrison of Fort 
Crawford, and fifteen killed.^ The remainder, led by 
Black Hawk and some Winnebago guides, pushed 
across through a rough, forbidding country, to the 
junction of the Bad Axe with the Mississippi, losing 
many along the way, who died of wounds and starva- 
tion. The now sadly depleted and almost famished 
crew reached the Mississippi on the first of August, 
and attempted to cross the river to the habitat of 
the Sioux, fondly hoping that their troubles would 
then be over. But only two or three canoes were 
obtainable, and the work was not only slow but, ow- 
ing to the swift current, accompanied by some loss 
of life. 

In the afternoon the movement was detected 

^ A French and Menominee Indian militia contingent from 
Green Bay now appeared on the scene, but its sole service was 
to slaughter most of the non-combatants who escaped from the 
raft. 



LEAD-MINING AND INDIAN WARS 227 

by the crew of the Warrior, a government supply 
steamer carrying a detachment of soldiers from Fort 
Crawford. A third time the Hawk sought to sur- 
render, but his white signal was fired at, under 
pretense that it was a savage ruse, and round after 
round of canister swept the wretched camp. The 
next day (August 2) the troops, who had been de- 
layed for three days in crossing Wisconsin River, 
were close upon their heels, and arrived on the 
hei2:hts overlooking^ the beach. The Warrior there- 
upon renewed its attack, and caught between two 
galling fires the poor savages soon succumbed. 
Black Hawk fled inland to seek an asylum at the 
Dells of the Wisconsin with his false friends, the 
Winnebago, who had guided the white army along 
his path ; fifty of his people remained on the east 
bank and were taken prisoners by the troops ; some 
three hundred miserable starvelings, largely non- 
combatants, reached the west shore through the hail 
of metal, only to be waylaid by Sioux, dispatched by 
army officials to intercept them, and half of their 
number were slain. Of the band of a thousand Sauk 
who had entered Illinois in April, not much over a 
hundred and fifty lived to tell of the Black Hawk 
War, one of the most discreditable punitive expedi- 
tions in the long and checkered history of American 
relations with the aborigines. 

As for the indiscreet but honest Black Hawk, in 
many ways one of the most interesting of North Am- 
erican Indians, he was promptly surrendered (Au- 



228 WISCONSIN 

gust 27) by the Winnebago to the Indian agency 
at Prairie du Chien. Imprisoned first at Jefferson 
Barracks and then at Fortress Monroe, exhibited 
to throngs of curiosity-seeking people in the East- 
ern States, and obliged to sign articles of perpetual 
peace, he was finally turned over for safe-keeping to 
his hated and hating rival, the Fox chief Keokuk. 
In 1834 his autobiography was published — a book 
probably authentic for the most part, but the stilted 
style is no doubt that of his white editor. 

Dying in 1838 (October 3) upon a small reserva- 
tion in Iowa, Black Hawk's grave was rifled by a 
traveling physician, who utilized the bones for ex- 
hibition purposes. Two years later the skeleton was, 
on the demand of indignant sympathizers, surren- 
dered to the State of Iowa ; but in 1853 the box 
containing it was destroyed by a fire at Iowa City, 
then the capital of that commonwealth. 

With all his faults, and these were chiefly racial, 
Black Hawk was preeminently a patriot. A year 
before his death, he made a speech to a party of 
whites who were making of him a holiday hero, 
and thus forcibly defended his motives : " Rock 
River was a beautiful country. I liked my town, 
my cornfields, and the home of my people. I fought 
for them." No poet could have penned for him a 
more touching epitaph. 



CHAPTER X 

ESTABLISHMENT OF WISCONSIN TERRITORY 

Much space was given to the Black Hawk War 
in the periodical press of the day. It had been 
many years since an Indian uprising had startled 
the country, and its novelty and picturesqueness 
attracted general attention. Not only many of the 
Western papers, but several of the Eastern, had 
soldier correspondents, who, when nothing of mo- 
ment was occurring in camp or on the march, sent 
to their respective journals descriptions of the fer- 
tile and interesting region through which the army 
was passing. The alternating groves, prairies, hills, 
lakes, and streams appealed strongly to the imagi- 
nation of the writers, and their enthusiasm often 
expressed itself in amusingly florid terms. Not 
only during the war, but closely following it, there 
were also published several books and pamphlets 
giving accounts of this newly-discovered paradise. 
The westward movement being then popular in the 
Eastern and Middle States, these publications were 
eagerly read, with the immediate consequence that 
a strong migratory tide was set flowing toward 
southern and eastern Wisconsin and northern 
Illinois. 



230 WISCONSIN 

The quelling of the discontented aborigines had 
at last made settlement therein safe, and large 
cessions of land were for meagre sums promptly 
secured from the now pliant tribes. On July 29, 
1829, the united Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawa- 
tomi agreed at Prairie du Chien to cede their pos- 
sessions, given to them by the treaty of 1816, lying 
between Rock and Wisconsin rivers ; also a tract 
from Grosse Pointe, near Chicago, westward to 
Rock River, but with hunting rights reserved until 
these lands should be sold to settlers. The Meno- 
minee, in a treaty held September 3, 1832, at 
Cedar Point, on Fox River, ceded four million 
acres on Wolf River and 184,320 acres along the 
Wisconsin. Twelve days later, at Rock Island, the 
Winnebago agreed to vacate their extensive plant- 
ing, hunting, and fishing grounds south and east 
of the Wisconsin and of the Fox River of Green 
Bay. Six days after that, the Sauk formally relin- 
quished all claims they might have to holdingF 
east of the Mississippi. At a further treaty with 
the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi, concluded 
at Chicago on September 26, 1833, these tribes 
ceded "all their land along the western shore of 
Lake Michigan, and between this lake and the land 
ceded to the United States by the Winnebago na- 
tion," just referred to, " bounded on the north by 
the country ceded by the Menominees, and on the 
south by the country ceded at the treaty of Prairie 
du Chien, made on the 29th July, 1829, supposed 



ESTABLISHMENT OF TERRITORY 231 

to contain five million acres." The effect of these 
several conventions was to quiet aboriginal title to 
all remaining lands in Illinois, and to all of that 
]3ortion of the future Wisconsin lying south and east 
of both the Wisconsin and the Fox. 

North and west of these streams was still for 
the most part Indian country, but was ceded to 
the United States in a series of treaties, chiefly 
with the Chippewa and Menominee, between Octo- 
ber 4, 1842, and February 11, 1856. By the last- 
named convention, all Indian title to Wisconsin 
lands was finally quieted, save for a few small 
reservations to certain tribes.^ 

With peace restored, and millions of fertile 
acres thus newly opened to the use of white men, 
federal land offices were in 1834 opened at Min- 
eral Point and Green Bay, another being estab- 
lished at Milwaukee two years later. The lead-mine 
district again attracted miners and speculators. 
Fox River valley suddenly entered on a larger and 
busier life, and small agricultural communities 
sprang up at many sites in southern and eastern 

1 In the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1904 
their population is given as follows : — • 

Green Bay school ..... 1804 

La Pointe ag-ency 5275 

Oneida ag"ency ...... 2058 

Wittenberg school 1386 

Total in Wisconsin 10,523 

This count does not include the civilized Brothertown and 
Stockbridge, chiefly resident in Calumet County. 



232 WISCONSIN 

Wisconsin, that in our day are occupied by cities 
and villages. By the year 1836 nearly eleven thou- 
sand whites were living within the borders of the 
nascent commonwealth. Up to December 1 of that 
year it was reported that 878,014 acres had been 
sold therein to settlers and speculators — two thirds 
to the latter class, who were now overrunning the 
Western country. This was a remarkable record, 
when it is considered that previous to 1834 no 
public lands had been disposed of within the limits 
of Wisconsin, save that Congress had confirmed 
the private French claims at Green Bay and Prairie 
du Chien. 

The country lying between Lake Michigan and 
the Mississippi River, north of the Illinois line, 
remained until 1836 a portion of Michigan Terri- 
tory. But so far removed were these fast-growing 
settlements from the seat of government at De- 
troit, that much inconvenience was experienced in 
the administration of civil government. As early 
as 1824, James Duane Doty, federal circuit judge 
at Green Bay, and political leader in the Fox 
River valley, — a man of good education and fine 
manners, — began an agitation for a new territory, 
for which he proposed the name " Chippewau." 
Congress failed to act upon this proposition, but 
three years later he was again at work in behalf of 
his project. This time he suggested, in recognition 
of its principal river, the name " Wiskonsin," such 
being Doty's phonetic rendering, always persisted 



ESTABLISHMENT OF TERRITORY 233 

in by him, of the French spelling, " Ouisconsin,"^ 
itself an attempt to phoneticize the aboriginal 
name. In 1829, Henry Dodge, one of the leading 
spirits in the lead-mine region, and later Doty's 
political rival, forcefully presented to Michigan's 
territorial delegate in Congress the "claims the 
people have on the National Legislature for a divi- 
sion of the Territory." 

Meanwhile Doty continued active in the mat- 
ter, and succeeded in inducing the Committee on 
Territories, in the federal House of Representa- 
tives, to introduce (January 6, 1830) a " Bill es- 
tablishing the Territory of Huron," which was to 
be bounded on the south by the states of Illinois 
and Missouri, westwardly by the Missouri and 
White Earth rivers, northwardly by the interna- 
tional boundary, and eastwardly by a line running 
practically through the middle of Lake Michigan, 

1 In the oldest French documents it is spelled '* Misconsing'," 
" Ouisconching-," " Ouiskensing," etc., but in time this crystallized 
into " Ouisconsin." The meaning of the aboriginal word, thus va- 
riously rendered, is now unknown. Popular writers declare that it 
signifies "gathering of the waters," or "meeting of the waters," 
having reference, possibly, to the occasional mingling of the diver- 
gent streams over the low-lying watershed at Fox- Wisconsin 
portage ; but there is no warrant for this. In order to preserve the 
sound in English it became necessary, on the arrival of Ameri- 
cans, to modify the French spelling. At first it was locally 
rendered " Wiskonsan " (which is closely phonetic), then " Wis- 
konsin ; " but Congress seemed to prefer the hard c, and this was 
retained in place of k, despite the protest of Governor Doty and 
many Territorial newspaper editors. Thus the official spelling 
became " Wisconsin." 



234 WISCONSIN 

the Straits of Mackinac (south of Mackinac and 
Bois Blanc islands), and River St. Mary's. This 
would have given to the proposed new territory all 
of the present upper peninsula of Michigan and a 
wide tract to the west of the Mississippi. 

It is possible that the scheme for the Territory 
of Huron might have been adopted, had not there 
now developed a somewhat bitter and wordy rivalry 
between the two centres of population in the coun- 
try west of Lake Michigan, — the rapidly-develop- 
ing and somewhat radical industrial region of the 
lead mines, and the conservative agricultural and 
commercial valley of the Fox. Should the territorial 
capital be established at the old and staid fur- 
trading and garrison town of Green Bay, the seat 
of Brown County? or at the new log-cabined vil- 
lage of Mineral Point (first settled in 1827-28), 
metropolis of the lead mines and seat of Iowa 
County, which in 1829 had been formed out of 
that portion of Crawford situated to the south of 
Wisconsin River? This contest appears to have 
dulled the interest of Congress ; moreover, Michi- 
gan vigorously protested that the proposed division 
"would have the effect to impair her future im- 
portance as a state." 

Another bill to create a new territory out of 
western Michigan passed the House in 1831, but, 
largely because of the local quarrel, failed in the 
Senate. The following year, still another was re- 
ported in the House, this measure reviving the 



ESTABLISHMENT OF TERRITORY 235 

name " Wisconsin," but the project was laid over 
among the unfinished business of the session. In 
February, 1834, a similar proposition was reported 
in the Senate ; the attempt, however, once more 
proved futile. In June following, all of the trans- 
Mississippi country that had been mentioned in the 
Huron bill was, " for administrative purposes," at- 
tached to Michigan Territory, which still further 
emphasized the importance of dividing the latter. 
The agitation for division now received assistance 
from the movement of the people of Michigan to 
form a state government ; it came to be admitted 
upon the peninsula that the bounds of the territory 
were far too extensive for the proposed common- 
wealth. 

There still remained the difficulty of establishing 
a boundary between the would-be Territory of 
Wisconsin and the projected State of Michigan. 
This being finally arranged, the former was erected 
by Congress under a bill approved April 20, 1836, 
to take effect "from and after the third day of 
July next." Wisconsin Territory was given the 
same boundaries as the present state, so far as 
Michigan and Illinois were concerned; but to the 
south and west its limits ran far beyond the state's 
present bounds — including as it did all the lands 
lying north of the State of Missouri and between 
the Mississippi River on the east and the Missouri 
and White Earth on the west. This trans-Missis- 
sippi region was the same as had, "for adminis- 



236 WISCONSIN 

trative purposes," been annexed in 1834 to the 
Territory of Michigan. 

It was provided in the act that the laws o£ Michi- 
gan Territory should prevail until Wisconsin could 
form her own code, that the first legislative assem- 
bly (consisting of a council and a house of repre- 
sentatives) was to hold its opening session at such 
time and place as the governor might appoint, and 
that the governor and assembly should locate and 
establish the seat of government. Twenty thousand 
dollars were appropriated by the United States for 
aiding in the erection of public buildings at the 
selected capital, and five thousand were given toward 
a territorial library ; the governor was directed to 
hold a general election for the assembly, and a 
census was ordered to be taken previous to this 
election. The governor, to be appointed by the 
President of the United States, was also made super- 
intendent of Indian affairs and commander-in-chief 
of the militia, his annual salary being fixed at 
$2500. There was also provided by the enabling 
act a supreme court consisting of a chief justice and 
two associates, and the customary district and pro- 
bate courts and justices of the peace. The scale of 
living expenses upon the then national frontier 
may be appreciated when one reads in the act 
of establishment that the supreme court judges 
were to receive fl800 per year. Three hundred 
and fifty dollars were allowed by Congress for the 
expenses of the first legislative session, including 



ESTABLISHMENT OF TERRITORY 237 

printing and other incidentals ; but the cost actually 
incurred aggregated over twenty-five thousand dol- 
lars, then thought to be an exorbitant expendi- 
ture. 

Meanwhile, the political affairs of Michigan were 
much confused. Presuming that statehood would 
readily be granted by Congress, a state constitution 
had been adopted and ratified during 1835, and in 
October of that year an election for state officers 
was held. Although as yet unauthorized by the 
federal power, the machinery of state government 
was now in full operation, save for the judicial 
branch, which was not organized until the Fourth of 
July, 1836. Provision had been made for the penin- 
sula; but the country west of Lake Michigan, then 
containing the counties of Brown, Milwaukee, Iowa, 
Crawford, Dubuque, and Des Moines, was "no 
man's land " so far as the new state government 
was concerned. The inhabitants thereof, together 
with a small minority in Michigan proper, were 
nevertheless persisting in their rights as citizens 
of Michigan Territory. 

John Scott Horner had, in September, 1835, 
a month before the state election, been appointed 
by President Jackson as secretary and acting 
governor of Michigan Territory. The coming to 
Detroit of this young and apparently tactless 
Virginian, quite unfamiliar with Western men and 
affairs, was regarded as an intrusion and aroused a 
spirit of opposition ; so that the unfortunate official 



238 WISCONSIN 

was subjected to neglect, and more than once to 
actual insult. 

It had been arranged by Horner's predecessor 
that the territorial legislative council should hold 
a session at Green Bay, commencing the 1st of 
January, 1836, chiefly for the benefit of the west- 
ern part of the territory. But in November Horner 
issued a proclamation announcing that " for divers 
good causes and considerations " the date would be 
shifted to the first of the previous December. This 
occasioned much annoyance, for so slow were the 
mails that few if any of the western members-elect 
received notice of the change in time to attend the 
December meeting, which therefore was not held ; 
neither did Horner himself report for duty. A 
quorum assembled on New Year's day, but still 
without the executive, whose presence was essential 
to the transaction of business, and the session ended 
on the 15th. Little had been done beyond voting a 
caustic arraignment of the absentee, renewed bick- 
ering over the location of the proposed territorial 
capital of Wisconsin, and the adoption of a report 
declaring that the people of Michigan Territory 
west of Lake Michigan had been ruled " rather as 
a distant colony than as an integral portion of the 
same government." 

In the preceding October Stevens T. Mason had 
been elected governor of the State of Michigan, and 
with him was chosen a full state ticket. Horner was 
thus left in an anomalous position. President Jack- 



ESTABLISHMENT OF TERRITORY 239 

son eased the situation for his appointee by pro- 
mising him the secretaryship of Wisconsin Terri- 
tory, for which it was by this time seen that Congress 
would soon make provision. In the spring of 1836 
the Winnebago were making considerable disturb- 
ance around Fort Winnebago, because their annui- 
ties were not being paid, and they were in a fam- 
ished condition. Horner, who had now removed to 
the west of the lake, was directed to proceed to the 
scene of trouble and pacify them, which he did by 
distributing to the malcontents a large part of the 
food stores in the fort. 

Dodge, now well known because of his part in the 
Black Hawk War, had on May 6 been appointed 
by President Jackson as first governor of the new 
territory. Of fine physique but somewhat pompous 
manner, at times amazingly obstinate in disposi- 
tion, and obviously deficient in early education, he 
nevertheless was a creditable official and a man of 
action ; as an Indian fighter he had exhibited a 
dash and bravery that appealed strongly to the 
populace, who overestimated his other qualities. 
Dodge and Secretary Horner, who had been ap- 
pointed the same day, took the oath of office at 
Mineral Point, by this time the largest town in 
Wisconsin, upon the Fourth of July. The ceremony 
was the principal feature of a noisy celebration of 
the national holiday by the miners of the district, 
many of whom had served under Dodge and idol- 
ized him. Later in the summer, the President ap- 



240 WISCONSIN 

pointed Charles Dunn as chief justice, and William 
C. Frazer and David Irvin as associate justices of 
the supreme court, and William W. Chapman as 
federal district attorney. Henry S. Baird, the pio- 
neer lawyer of Wisconsin, was appointed by the 
governor as attorney-general. 

As for Michigan, vexatious delays attended her 
statehood bill, chiefly owing to boundary disputes 
with Ohio, Indiana, and the incipient Wisconsin, 
all of them growing out of conditions imposed by 
the Ordinance of 1787, which we shall presently 
discuss. But the commonwealth was finally ad- 
mitted to the Union by virtue of a bill apj^roved 
January 26, 1837, being given the territorial lim- 
its which she possesses to-day. 

The first legislative assembly of Wisconsin Ter- 
ritory was convened on October 25, 1836, in a 
story-and-a-half frame building built for the pur- 
pose, at Belmont, a freshly-platted town in the pre- 
sent county of Lafayette,^ and then in the heart of 
the lead-mine district. There were thirty-nine mem- 
bers, thirteen in the council and twenty-six in the 
house of representatives. That part of the territory 
in which the original title had thus far been ac- 

* Now a decayed hamlet of meagre proportions, called Leslie. 
The name Belmont was in 1867 removed to a new town, three 
miles to the southeast. The building in which the legislative ses- 
sion was held, together with the neighboring dwelling built for 
Chief Justice Dunn, and the office of the Belmont Express, were 
still in existence in 1908. See Wisconsin Historical Society Pro- 
ceedings for 1906, pp. 48-53. 



ESTABLISHMENT OF TERRITORY 241 

quired by purchase — south and east of Wisconsin 
and Fox rivers — was subdivided into convenient 
counties; three banks were established, — at Du- 
buque, Mineral Point, and Milwaukee, — all of 
which, together with a Green Bay bank incorpo- 
rated by Michigan the year before, ultimately 
failed and wrought widespread financial disaster 
among depositors. But the discussion awakening 
the deepest interest in the legislature was, as usual 
in new territories and states, the location of the 
capital. 

Among the older towns, Green Bay and Mine- 
ral Point were still the chief contestants for this 
honor, it being supposed that prosperity would 
quickly follow in the wake of such prominence. 
But the young village of Milwaukee, then three 
years old and ambitiously representing commerce 
on the Great Lakes, had appeared in the lists. 
Other claimants were Racine, Koshkonong, Fond 
du Lac, Madison, City of the Second Lake, City 
of the Four Lakes, Peru, Wisconsin City, Portage, 
Helena, Belmont, Mineral Point, Platteville, Cass- 
ville, and Belle view ; while Dubuque also had ad- 
herents, for it will be remembered that what is 
now Iowa was then a part of Wisconsin. Many of 
these were town sites existing only on paper and 
in the brains of real estate speculators ; among 
whom Governor Mason of Michigan and Judge 
Doty, themselves proprietors of several rival sites 
(including Madison), were particularly prominent. 



242 WISCONSIN 

Thus distributing their interests, this pair had 
from the first a decided advantage over the field, 
for, losing on one contest, they could contentedly 
shift their votes to another, and thereby prolong 
the fight. Doty, who astutely managed the specu- 
lation, was as well the best-informed man of his 
day relative to the topography and resources of 
Wisconsin. He had known the country intimately 
since 1820, when with Governor Cass and Indian 
Agent Henry R. Schoolcraft he made an expedi- 
tion to Lake Superior and the sources of the Mis- 
sissippi; and since his appointment as federal judge, 
his long and somewhat circuitous horseback tours 
between the court towns of Green Bay and Prairie 
du Chien had given him a rare opportunity to be- 
come intimate with the interior. The legislative 
discussion, which at times closely approached a 
wrangle, continued throughout the first month of the 
session, and long hung on the question as to which 
of the three extreme centres of population should 
be preferred. Green Bay, situated in the northeast 
corner of the territory, was closely connected with 
the stream of immigration coming westward by the 
Great Lakes, had an interesting history associated 
with the fur-trade and the French regime, and was 
already taking on a somewhat aristocratic social 
tone. Mineral Point, in the southwest, was the 
larger settlement, and the seat of important indus- 
trial interests. Milwaukee, young and hopeful, 
was on the eastern edge of the territory, and by no 



ESTABLISHMENT OF TERRITORY 243 

means certain of ultimately outgrowing Kenosha 
and other lakeshore rivals. 

Of his several " paper towns," Doty's favorite 
was Madison, then a virgin forest situated along a 
narrow, mile-wide isthmus between Third and 
Fourth lakes, ^ and as yet not even surveyed. On 
November 24, Madison (named from James Madi- 
son, fourth president of the United States) was 
victorious. The story was long current that city 
lots therein were freely distributed by the tena- 
cious Doty among members and their friends. But 
aside from such possible considerations, the argu- 
ment for Madison was deemed conclusive, because 
it was in the nature of a compromise between the 
conflicting interests of Green Bay and the mining 
country ; and being situated midway between set- 
tlements on Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, it 
was hoped that the proposed new town would as- 
sist in developing the still wild interior. Moreover, 
Doty convinced members that the site was excep- 
tionally beautiful and healthful. It was stipulated 
in the act of establishment that until a public 
building could be erected at the new capital, the 
legislature was to meet at Burlington (now in Iowa). 

In February following (1837), the ground still 

^ The present Indian names of the Four Lakes at Madison were 
first applied to them by legislative action in 1855. The Winne- 
bago name for the series was Taychoperah (Four Lakes), and 
white pioneers called them by their numbers, from south to north : 
First (now Kegonsa), Second (VVaubesa), Third (Monona), and 
Fourth (Mendota). 



244 WISCONSIN 

thickly mantled with snow, the town site of Madi- 
son was roughly platted by a pioneer surveyor — 
the capitol park in the centre, with streets radiat- 
ing therefrom after the manner of Washington, 
and these patriotically named from the signers of 
the federal Constitution. In March, Eben Peck, 
keeper of a boarding-house at Blue Mound mine, 
some thirty miles westward, sent out two French- 
men to put up for him a log house within the pro- 
jected city, under whose roof he proposed to open a 
tavern for the accommodation of workmen who were 
to be sent out to erect the capitol. Uj)on April 15, 
Roseline, his wife, arrived with their two-year-old 
boy, to take possession of the premises in advance 
of her husband's coming. Thus a woman and her 
infant boy were the first permanent white settlers 
of Madison, and its first building was a boarding- 
house. 

It was the 10th of June before Building-Com- 
missioner Auofustus A. Bird arrived from Milwau- 
kee with thirty-six mechanics and laborers, after a 
dreary and toilsome overland journej^ of ten days, 
through rain and mud. There were then no roads 
in the territory, save in the lead region for the 
transportation of ore by ox-teams, and these had 
been developed from the old and well-defined In- 
dian trails which interlaced the country, traces of 
which can still be seen in some portions of the 
state. Bird brought with him sawmill machinery 
and other heavy materials from the East, unloaded 



ESTABLISHMENT OF TERRITORY 245 

for his use upon the steamboat dock in Milwaukee. 
His were the first wagons wheeled across the prai- 
ries and through the oak groves (or " oak open- 
ings," as they were then called) of southeastern 
Wisconsin. Following a native trail from Lake 
Michigan to the Four Lakes, which in many places 
was by his little caravan worked into quagmires, 
the rivers were swum by his horses, and wagons 
and freight were taken over in Indian canoes. 

The capitol was but slowly built, for logs must 
needs be cut upon the neighboring lake shores and 
worked into timber at the official sawmill, and 
quarries had also to be opened, the stone being 
brought across Fourth Lake upon rafts. In April, 
1838, the building commissioner, encompassed by 
disappointments, turned the work over to a con- 
tractor. Their sadly-tangled construction accounts 
afterwards became a fruitful source of litigation 
and legislative claims, extending throughout the 
territorial period. 

In November the legislative assembly first met 
at Madison. But as only fifty boarders could be ac- 
commodated in the place, a recess was taken until 
January 26, 1839, when the situation was some- 
what improved. But the statehouse was still far 
from complete, and for several sessions Madison, 
which for various reasons grew but slowly in those 
early days, proved an inconvenient and ill-provided 
meeting-place for the legislature of the young ter- 
ritory. 



CHAPTER XI 

TERRITORIAL PIONEERS AND PIONEERING 

The financial depression of 1837 somewhat 
checked Western immigration, and Wisconsin busi- 
ness men, with here and there a comparatively 
wealthy farmer, were seriously affected. But as a 
rule the capital chiefly needed by pioneers of that 
period was muscle, pluck, and brain, and it was 
not long before the movement toward the new ter- 
ritory was resumed with gathered strength. 

The earliest American settlers of the Old North- 
west had, if from New England, New York, or 
Pennsylvania, floated down the Ohio River in flat- 
boats, keels, and barges ; or if from Virginia and 
the Carolinas, they trudged on foot or came on 
horseback, over Boone's famous Wilderness Road, 
through Cumberland Gap. But Wisconsin's agri- 
cultural pioneers for the most part came by more 
northern paths. These varied according to individ- 
uals and circumstances. For example, Whitehall, 
New York, was for some time the port for Vermont 
families. Reaching that town by stage or farm 
wagon, burdened with household goods, farming im- 
plements, and seeds, and not infrequently live stock, 
the emigrants took boat on the Northern Canal to 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 247 

Troy, where they met others from northern New 
England and various parts of New York. The Erie 
Canal was followed to Buffalo, whence a steamboat 
took the pilgrims to Detroit, then the chief dis- 
tributing centre for Indiana, Illinois, and Wiscon- 
sin. 

From Detroit, sailing craft and steamers carried 
the settlers to Green Bay, Milwaukee, Chicago, 
or St. Josephs. But frequently all space on board 
was taken, even to mattresses spread on deck and 
dining-saloon floor. In such case, a canvas-topped 
lumber wagon, or a rakish, roomy vehicle popularly 
styled " prairie schooner," w^as thereafter the con- 
veyance into the still farther West, sometimes car- 
rying the party all the long way from Detroit to 
Wisconsin. Occasionally, after crossing Michigan 
peninsula for a hundred and eighty miles, another 
vessel might be found at St. Josephs, and if not 
overcrowded this could be taken to Chicago, Mil- 
waukee, or other lake ports. Thousands came, of 
course, from the Middle States ; others moved on 
from the older communities of the Northwest (in 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois), dissatisfied with pre- 
sent locations and hoping for better openings in the 
still newer land ; and not a few, even thus early, 
hailed from the Old World. But whatever their 
origin or their earlier paths, ultimately they must 
reach the distributing points of Detroit, Chicago, 
Milwaukee, or Green Bay, where they formed 
caravans proceeding into the interior, — all save 



248 WISCONSIN 

such settlers and prospectors as came to the lead 
region from Missouri and the border states, by way 
of the Mississippi and Ohio, or by overland stage 
from southern Illinois. 

The majority of these pioneers, who obtained 
lands on easy conditions from the federal govern- 
ment, under the homestead laws of the period, were 
accustomed to toiling with their hands and to the 
simplicity of extremely frugal homes ; well-to-do 
folk seldom cared to " rough it " on the frontier. 
However, the many privations and hardships of 
Western pioneering, concerning which so much has 
truthfully been written, meant far less to the aver- 
age frontiersmen than it might to us, from our pre- 
sent point of view. In practice they took to them 
kindly, as being not unlike their previous experi- 
ences in the outlying sections of the East, in the 
days before railways. Perhaps to most of them it 
meant little more than the necessity for still further 
simplicity ; for in the new West, so recently a wil- 
derness, each household, despite the camaraderie 
of backwoods settlements, was in large measure 
absolutely dependent on itself for material things — 
tools, implements, clothing, and food. There was, 
also, to those who loved nature, — and most health- 
ful people have something of the gypsy within 
them, — much of quiet joy in the untrammeled life 
of virgin lands. Taking life seriously, as a rule, the 
intellects of most frontiersmen were quickened by 
the new conditions and requirements, and to their 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 249 

children they left a heritage of brawn and sober 
purpose. 

From prehistoric times, rivers have been the 
chief highways of the continental interior. For this 
reason, French Canadians almost invariably settled 
upon their banks. But in developing the North- 
western wilderness, the American backwoodsman 
was seeking good farm lands ; ease of intercom- 
munication being with him a secondary considera- 
tion. The majority of them had perforce, therefore, 
to live inland. Not seldom the Wisconsin settler, 
when at last he had '' broken " the prairie with his 
heavy oxplow, or had chopped and burned out a 
" clearing " in the dense forest, and begun to study 
his environment, found himself a hundred miles or 
more from even a primitive gristmill, possibly up- 
wards of thirty from a post-office or " store," these 
two conveniences usually being combined. An In- 
dian trail, or a blazed bridle-path, was perhaps the 
only connection with his base of supplies and his 
market. Happy the man whose log hut lay along 
such a trail ; then he might occasionally be called 
on " to put up " some gossipy mail carrier for the 
night, ^ to entertain a circuit preacher, or be visited 
by a government official plodding on his lonely 
tour. 

If coming in the summer, the traveler made his 
way by boat, or on foot, or on horseback ; his win- 

1 Four mail routes were established in Wisconsin by the fed- 
eral government in 1832, sixteen in 1836, and fifteen iu 1838. 



250 WISCONSIN 

ter conveyance, however, was apt to be a " French 
train " (a long narrow box-sled, drawn by two horses 
tandem). If located where the trail crossed a river 
or a small lake, the settler might turn ferryman, 
perhaps also " keep tavern," for the accommodation 
of these chance travelers, who would almost always 
leave for such service a few shillings of ready 
money. Frequently, however, the backwoodsman 
was closely hemmed in by gloomy woodlands, or 
amidst broad prairies stretching to the horizon, 
quite far removed from any track leading to civili- 
zation, save the path he had himself broken on his 
arrival. Then would he see his neighbors only when 
log houses were " raised " by the combined effort of 
the far-scattered settlement, or at " bees " for quilt- 
ing, harvesting, corn-husking, cider-making, wood- 
chopping, and the like. 

With the growth of settlement, the numerous 
Indian trails were gradually broadened and straight- 
ened into wagon roads, and other highways were 
added as necessity required. Apparently, the first 
real road to be opened in Wisconsin was laid out 
in 1824 along the east side of the Fox, from Green 
Bay to Kaukauna, doubtless being paid for by pri- 
vate subscription. In 1834 we find Michigan Ter- 
ritory establishing a public road from Milwaukee 
to the Mississippi, by way of Platte Mounds. The 
following year, provision was made for another 
from Blue Mounds to the northern boundary of 
Illinois, in the direction of Chicago ; also one from 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 251 

Milwaukee to Lake Winnebago, at Calumet vil- 
lage. By 1840, Green Bay, the Lake Michigan 
towns, and the interior settlements of Janesville, 
Beloit, and Madison, were connected with each 
other and with the lead mines of the southwest. 
The system had extended by 1848 to about a dozen 
principal highways, although doubtless most of 
them were in wretched condition during wet wea- 
ther. Previous to 1843 there were no roads north 
and west of the Fox- Wisconsin rivers ; in that 
year, however, one was commenced from Prairie 
du Chien to Chequamegon Bay, by way of the 
Black and Chippewa rivers. 

During the territorial period. Congress appro- 
priated #67,000 for military roads within our bor- 
ders. The principal one extended from Green Bay, 
via the east shore of Lake Winnebago, to Forts 
Winnebago and Crawford. Others were from Fort 
Howard by way of Milwaukee and Racine to the 
Illinois boundary, reaching out toward Chicago ; 
from Milwaukee westward, via Madison, to a point 
on the Mississippi River opposite Dubuque ; from 
Racine, via Janesville, to Sinapee, on the Missis- 
sippi; from Sauk Harbor on Lake Michigan to 
Wisconsin River ; from Fond du Lac, via Fox 
Lake, to the Wisconsin ; from Sheboygan, by way 
of Fond du Lac, to Fox River in the neighborhood 
of Green Lake ; and from Southport (now^ Keno- 
sha), by way of Geneva, to Beloit.* Many of these, 
however, had little work done upon them. The 



252 WISCONSIN 

first plank road of record was built in 1846 be- 
tween Lisbon and Milwaukee ; but the following 
year sixteen companies were chartered for the con- 
struction of highways thus surfaced, and others 
followed rapidly. 

Most settlers brought with them from their East- 
ern homes a small stock of the frontier staples, salt 
pork and flour, supposedly sufficient to tide them 
over until the first crop could be garnered. In due 
course this supply became exhausted, and then diffi- 
culty was encountered in the effort to replenish 
it, for usually more time than anticipated was 
required before the family became self-sustaining. 
But althouofh there were instances of some suffer- 
ing from this cause, the rivers, lakes, and woods 
commonly abounded with fish and game of many 
kinds, and the average frontiersman was of neces- 
sity half hunter, half farmer. 

We have seen that among the French Creoles 
of Wisconsin several were educated in Montreal. 
It is of record that as early as 1791 a tutor was 
employed in a Green Bay family, although the 
'* first regular school " was not opened there until 
1817. Garrison schools were inaugurated at Forts 
Crawford (1817), Howard (1824), and Winnebago 
(1835) for children of both officers and settlers. 
There were, also, church schools for white and In- 
dian youth alike, chief among them the Episcopal 
mission at Green Bay (commencing 1825). At 
the time of the organization of the territory in 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 253 

1836, there were within the limits of the present 
state a population, as already noted, of some eleven 
thousand whites, supporting "eight small private 
schools, and two hundred and seventy-five pupils 
attending them." These were located at Green 
Bay, Portage, Prairie du Chien, Mineral Point 
(1830), Platteville (1833), Milwaukee (autumn 
of 1835), Kenosha (December, 1835), and She- 
boygan (winter of 1836-37). The school at Madi- 
son was not opened until March 1, 1838. Not until 
the following year were school taxes levied in Wis- 
consin. Up to that time popular education was on 
a subscription basis ; indeed, in many communities 
public funds had, even after this date, to be sup- 
plemented by private aid. 

At the first session of the legislature, in Bel- 
mont (1836), an act was passed for the establish- 
ment at that village of " Wisconsin University." 
The following year, the " Wisconsin University of 
Green Bay " was likewise provided for, on paper ; 
and a few months later (January 5, 1838), an act 
organizing the " University of the Territory of 
Wisconsin " was approved by the governor, but 
nothing further was done about it until ten years 
afterward, when Wisconsin had become a state. 
Normal instruction, apart from that given depart- 
mentally in the state university, was deferred to 
a much later date (1865). 

A newspaper appeared in Green Bay before the 
organization of the territory. The first number of 



254 WISCONSIN 

the " Intelligencer " (semi-monthly), the " first 
newspaper published between Lake Michigan and 
the Pacific Ocean," was dated December 11, 1833. 
Of world or national news there was little, and that 
obtainable chiefly from " A gentleman just arrived 
from the East , " but occasionally the small doings 
of the village and of Fox River valley were re- 
corded, and the " poet's column " seldom lacked 
contributors. Neither was the " Intelligencer " 
lacking in the usual self-assertion of enterprise, for 
it headed its meagre news columns with this refrain, 
having reference to the pedestrian mail carrier 
from Chicago : — 

" Three times a week, without any fail, 
At four o'clock we look for the mail, 
Brought with dispatch on an Indian trail." 

Milwaukee's first public journal was the " Ad- 
vertiser," established in July, 1836. The Belmont 
" Gazette " followed in October of the same year ; 
but when Belmont ceased to be the capital, the 
types and press were removed to Mineral Point, 
to print the " Miners' Free Press," which appeared 
the next June (1837) . The " Wisconsin Enquirer " 
began service in Madison in November, 1838. 

From the fall of New France in 1763, the Catho- 
lic Church appears to have practically abandoned 
what is now Wisconsin ; indeed, services at Green 
Bay must have been quite irregular after the open- 
ing of the Fox Wars and the burning of St. Francis 
Xavier mission in 1688. We know that the Jesuit 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 255 

Father Jean Baptiste Chardon was at La Baye in 
1721, and it is probable that occasional missionary 
tours were undertaken hither by Mackinac priests, 
who kept the nearest registry of baptisms, mar- 
riages, and deaths. In 1823 the Church renewed 
its work at Green Bay ; La Pointe Indian mission 
reopened in 1835, and Milwaukee diocese was 
erected in 1844. 

It will be remembered that the first Protestant 
sermon in Wisconsin, of record, was preached in 
1820 by Rev. Jedediah Morse, a Presbyterian 
divine ; but it was sixteen years later before his 
denomination formally entered the territory. The 
Episcopalians opened a church at Green Bay in 
1825, contemporaneous with their Indian mission 
school. The Congregationalists, then doing mission 
work in conjunction with the Presbyterians, built 
a church and school in 1827 or 1828, for the Stock- 
bridge mission at Statesburg, near South Kau- 
kauna ; and another for the La Pointe Indians in 
1833. A Methodist preacher appeared in the lead 
mines as early as 1828, and four years subsequently 
similar work was established by that denomination 
at Kaukauna. The Baptists appear to have begun 
their labors in Wisconsin in 1839. 

With all these evangelizing agencies actively at 
work among them, the early settlers of the terri- 
tory seldom lacked the comforts of religion ; but 
so sparse was the settlement and so slender the 
financial resources of the parishioners, that the 



256 WISCONSIN 

early ministry, largely itinerant, was ill provided 
for and often subject to genuine hardships. Its 
members deserve to rank among the most useful 
and daring of the pioneer class. Churches as well 
as schools were among the earliest institutions in 
each community ; a study of town and county 
annals reveals the fact that everywhere they fol- 
lowed speedily in the wake of the first arrivals. 
Thus Wisconsin soon took a firm stand in the 
cause of secular and religious education. 

We have spoken of the industrial "bees," whereat 
would gather men, women, and children, often liv- 
ing many miles apart, intent on assisting each other 
with work that if carried on unaided might to many 
families seem a dreary and in some instances im- 
possible burden. These gatherings, eagerly antici- 
pated by the countryside, were occasions of much 
boisterous jollity, and through the familiar meeting 
of young folk the source also of much frontier ro- 
mance. The humors of the day were often uncouth. 
There was a deal of horseplay, hard drinking, and 
profanity, and occasionally a personal encounter 
during the heat of discussion ; but an undercurrent 
of good-nature was generally observable. Dances, 
singing classes, and spelling contests were favorite 
amusements, in both village and rural life. The 
spasmodic visits of the circuit preacher, and oc- 
casional summer camp-meetings and " protracted 
meetings," were also welcome breaks in the te- 
dium of farm labor. 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 257 

The majority of the territorial pioneers of Wis- 
consin were of course farmers, next in number being 
mechanics and village storekeepers. But there were 
also many professional men, and men of affairs, 
generally youug and ambitious, who had flocked to 
the new territory from the East, seeking fame or 
wealth or both — just as enterprising young col- 
lege men of the present generation find openings in 
the Dakotas, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington. 
This type was chiefly to be found at Green Bay, 
Milwaukee, Madison, Prairie du Chien, and in 
the lead region. Green Bay, in particular, was the 
home of an exceptionally brilliant coterie, who from 
the first assisted in shaping public opinion and in 
organizing meritorious enterprises James Duane 
Doty, his cousin Morgan L. Martin, Henry S. 
Baird, Ebenezer Childs, and William Dickinson 
are examples of this class; the first three conspic- 
uous in law and politics, the other two in trade and 
manufactures. 

Of prominent Milwaukeeans we have space to 
mention but a few types, — Alexander Mitchel], 
the first and greatest Wisconsin banker; Byron 
Kilbourn and George H. Walker, who aided in 
developing business interests in the metropolis ; 
Increase A. Lapham, famous in several sciences, 
and originator of the federal Weather Bureau ; 
and Kufus King, Philo White, and John S. Fill- 
more, journalists of repute. 

Men of prominence throughout the territory came 



258 WISCONSIN 

to be familiar figures on the streets of the capital, 
not only from their presence during legislative ses- 
sions, but because in summer-time it was a favorite 
tarrying-place for overland travelers between the 
lead mines and Milwaukee and Green Bay. In 
time the village itself soon attracted skillful law- 
yers to her bar, and the Madison newspapers were 
edited with unusual ability. Among territorial edi- 
tors at the seat of government, whose names are 
deserving of permanent record, were W. W. Wy- 
man, S. D. Carpenter, H. A. Tenney, Benjamin 
Holt, Beriah Brown, George Hyer, Josiah A. 
Noonan, and Julius T. Clark. As already noted, 
the university, which in our day employs many 
teachers and writers of national reputation, did 
not exist in territorial times. 

The lead region was particularly favored with 
men who achieved success in several fields of ac- 
tion. The vigorous and ambitious Dodge — miner, 
soldier, and politician — was perhaps most widely 
known. Thomas P. Burnett, Charles Dunn, Mor- 
timer M. Jackson, and Moses M. Strong were 
lawyers who acquired a considerable reputation. 
Among the miners, John H. Rountree and Wil- 
liam Stephen Hamilton (son of the famous Alex- 
ander Hamilton) were men of education, mental 
breadth, and enterprise, who strongly influenced 
the early life and career of the district. 

Prairie du Chien, relatively a far less important 
community at present than formerly, was the home 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 259 

of several sucli men as Hercules S. Dousraan and 
Alfred Brunson, types of pioneers highly efficient 
in their respective spheres of business and the 
pulpit. 

As the political and educational centre of the 
state, Madison may still be considered as in some 
respects its most cosmopolitan city. But in terri- 
torial times it was notable each winter, during the 
legislative session, as the gathering-place of promi- 
nent men and women from all parts of Wisconsin, 
who came as legislators, lobbyists, or spectators, and 
were often accompanied by their families. Trans- 
portation arrangements being necessarily primitive, 
visitors often tarried throughout the season, filling 
the crude hotels to overflowing, but amid the gen- 
eral social gayety, heeding little the many discom- 
forts. A reminiscent pioneer has left to us this 
genial picture of early Madison under such condi- 
tions : — 

With the session came crowds of people. The public 
houses were literally crammed — shake-downs were 
looked upon as a luxury, and lucky was the guest con- 
sidered whose good fortune it was to rest his weary 
limbs on a straw or hay mattress. 

We had then no theatres or any places of amusement, 
and the long winter evenings were spent in playing vari- 
ous games of cards, checkers, and backgammon. Dancing 
was also much in vogue. Colonel James Maxwell, mem- 
ber of council from Rock and Walworth, was very gay, 
and discoursed sweet music on the flute, and Ben. C. 



260 WISCONSIN 

Eastman, one of the clerks, was an expert violinist. They 
two furnished the music for many a French four, cotillon, 
Virginia reel, and jig, that took place on the puncheon 
floors of the old log cabins forming the Madison House 
[the tavern erected by EbenPeck]. . . . Want of cere- 
mony, fine dress, classic music, and other evidences of 
present society life, never deterred us from enjoying our- 
selves those long winter evenings. 

" Personal journalism " of the most acrimonious 
type was then much in vogue, and party spirit ran 
high. Quarrels between the territorial governor 
and the legislature were not infrequent. The po- 
litical pessimist might have found in the Madison 
newspapers of the day much to confirm his fore- 
bodings. Nevertheless, the legislation was on the 
whole commendable. The country was rapidly fill- 
ing up with a robust population from the Eastern 
states and an increasing contingent of foreign-born, 
and this necessitated new apportionments after each 
census. These usually gave rise to displays of parti- 
san sharp practice. New counties had to be carved 
out, either from freshly-ceded Indian lands in the 
northern and central portions, or by subdivisions of 
organized counties. The statutory laws, originally 
borrowed from Michigan, required remolding to 
accord with local conditions. Ever present, much 
affecting all political action, was the ambition for 
statehood at as early a date as Congress could be 
induced to admit Wisconsin to the Union. 

An event occurred during the session of 1841-42 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 261 

that gained for the territory an unfortunate noto- 
riety. Dodge had early in October been removed 
from the governorship by President Tyler, who in 
his place appointed Doty. Less tactful than his old 
rival, Doty promptly drew on himself the dislike of 
the legislature by asserting in his opening message 
that no territorial law was effective until expressly 
approved by Congress. Despite his undoubted legal 
acumen, the executive was worsted in the wordy 
dispute that followed, and strained relations were 
the result. 

The governor had nominated one Baker as sheriff 
of Grant County, but there was a strong disposi- 
tion in the council to table the nomination. Doty's 
action was upheld by his neighbor, Charles C. P. 
Arndt of Brown County, and opposed, among others, 
by James R. Vineyard of Grant. On February 11, 
a personal altercation arose between the two, result- 
ing in the former striking the latter, who thereupon 
shot and killed his assailant. Vineyard was at once 
expelled from the council ; but upon being tried for 
manslaughter was acquitted. Charles Dickens, the 
English novelist, was then making his first tour of 
the United States, and with customary exaggeration 
cited this tragedy in " American Notes" as typical 
of public life in the West. The affair remains to 
this day the most painful incident in the legislative 
records of Wisconsin. 

It was not usual for Western pioneers, nerved 
by personal ambition and aglow with expectations, 



262 WISCONSIN 

seriously to concern themselves with the reforma- 
tion of society. Among the hordes of immigrants 
who annually poured into the promised lands of 
the Mississippi valley were, however, a few well- 
meaning people much concerned with questions of 
social betterment. In the year 1843, the people of 
Southport became interested in the theories of the 
French socialist Charles Fourier, then being advo- 
cated by Horace Greeley in the New York " Tri- 
bune." An association was formed, called " The 
Wisconsin Phalanx," and in May and June, 1844, 
a settlement made in the valley of Ceresco, now 
included in the city of Ripon. About a hundred 
and fifty persons, a few of them men and women of 
some ability, and nearly all industrious folk, event- 
ually joined the community, which soon erected sub- 
stantial buildings. The members ate in common, but 
each family lived in its own compartment. Labor 
was voluntary, in common fields and shops, but di- 
rected by officials of the phalanx, and each person 
received dividends in proportion to his value as a 
worker. Business and social meetings were held in 
the evenings : on Tuesday evening a literary and 
debating club met ; on Wednesday a singing school ; 
and on Thursday there was dancing. Religious be- 
lief was free, and there were other personal privi- 
leges, such as the liberty to maintain a horse and 
carriage " by paying to the association the actual 
cost of keeping." All children must attend school, 
and '* devote a j^ortion of time each day to some 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 263 

branch of industry ; " but parents might make other 
provisions for this than the phalanx school. 

Had members been content with ordinary re- 
wards for labor, the phalanx might have lasted. 
Their farming profits were rather above the aver- 
age ; at less expense they were better fed and 
clothed than their neighbors ; and they had many 
social enjoyments denied to others. But the strong 
and willing were yoked to the weak and slothful ; 
individual abilities were not given full play ; men 
around them were acquiring fortunes in land specu- 
lation and other enterprises, from which they were 
debarred. Dissatisfaction arose, and grew to such 
an extent that after seven years the phalanx began 
to melt away. The land was eventually sold at 
greatly increased value, with a considerable profit 
to each, and the Fourierites went out into the world 
again, each man to battle for himself.^ 

Two other cooperative industrial communities 
were established in territorial Wisconsin. A party 
of thirty Englishmen, mostly married, were led 
hither in 1843 by Thomas Hunt, a follower of Rob- 
ert Owen. Buying a farm in Spring Lake, at North 
Prairie, in Waukesha County, they sought to put 
in practice Owenite principles. After three dismal 
years the projectors, none of them accustomed to 
farm labor, abandoned the plan and melted into the 
population about them. In the same year, several 

^ See S. M. Pedrick, " The Wisconsin Phalanx at Ceresco," in 
Wis. Hist. Soc. Proceedings, 1902. 



264 WISCONSIN 

London mechanics organized the Utilitarian Asso- 
ciation of United Interests, and in 1845 sixteen of 
them left for America, settling upon two hundred 
acres near Mukwonago. Much of this land was 
undrained, and malaria claimed several victims. 
Crops were poor, for the men were not versed in 
agricultural methods ; prices were low ; the cooper- 
ative plan did not satisfy them in practice ; and 
at the end of three years they also were " starved 
out." Selling their farm at a fair price, the mem- 
bers settled in Milwaukee, where, following their 
respective trades, they again prospered. 

Another communistic enterprise in Wisconsin 
Territory was of a far different type from these. 
In 1843 there dwelt in Racine County, at the pretty 
little village of Burlington, a lawyer from New 
York State, named James Jesse Strang. Erratic, 
half-educated, and possessed of an almost insane 
passion for notoriety, he nevertheless was keen- 
witted and a fluent public speaker. One of his fol- 
lowers described him in later years as " small and 
spare, with a thin hatchet face, and reddish hair, 
but one of the most fascinating orators imagin- 
able." At first we hear of him as an active political 
worker, a temperance agitator, and the editor of a 
country newspaper. 

In January, 1844, Strang visited the large Mor- 
mon colony at Nauvoo, Illinois, was baptized by 
Joseph Smith, became an elder in the church, and 
was regarded as so valuable an acquisition to the 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 265 

Latter Day Saints that the Wisconsin missionary 
field was assigned to his charge. In June follow- 
ing, the Smiths were slain by a mob at Nauvoo, 
and, although but a fresh convert, Strang claimed 
the right to succeed Joseph. His pretensions were 
backed by documents alleged to have been written 
by the " martyr," but these the " twelve apostles " 
at Nauvoo denounced as vulgar forgeries. 

Driven from Illinois by his fellow religionists, 
Strang established a communistic Mormon colony 
on White River, near Burlington, and called it 
Voree. In a vigorous proclamation, abounding in 
caustic references to his enemies, he declared that 
the Angel of the Lord had revealed to him this 
location as the City of Promise, and had "cut off " 
the " Brighamites " at Nauvoo. By April, 1845, 
adherents began to arrive ; for no matter how 
strange may be a religious cult, followers will soon 
be attracted to it. President Strang's "visions" 
were regularly reported in his monthly newspaper 
organ, the Voree "Herald," and missionaries were 
dispatched by him to form "primitive Mormon" 
groups in Ohio, New York, and other Eastern and 
Central states, where they often had sharp encoun- 
ters with Brigham Young's representatives. It 
was claimed in the autumn of 1846 that " from one 
to two thousand people " were settled at Voree " in 
plain houses, in board shanties, in tents, and some- 
times many of them in the open air." 

Strang, claiming to be divinely inspired, was in 



266 WISCONSIN 

this so-called community a dictator in all things, 
temporal as well as spiritual. From time to time 
he pretended to unearth sets of brazen tablets, 
bearing rudely-etched hieroglyphics supposed to 
be the Holy Law, which " under angelic guidance '* 
he translated into a jargon fashioned in Biblical 
phrase. In this and other more or less hackneyed 
devices he displayed much ingenuity in duping his 
growing company of fanatics. 

In May, 1847, a branch of Voree was founded 
on Big Beaver Island, in a lonely archipelago 
near the outlet of Lake Michigan. Despite the op- 
position of neighboring fishermen, who had squatted 
on the islands and did not relish this invasion of 
their realm by Strang's " saints," the colony grew 
rapidly, and soon became headquarters for the 
sect ; Voree being thenceforth allowed to stagnate. 
Within two or three years two thousand devotees 
had gathered in the new colony, having built neat 
houses, roads, a dock, a large tabernacle of logs, 
and a steam sawmill. 

The island is in the midst of a region still fa- 
mous for its fish, the forests of the archipelago 
gave promise of great value, the soil was fertile, 
and access from the mainland difficult. Strang 
thought this isolated place an ideal location for his 
little commonwealth, whose city lie called after 
himself, " St. James." Doubtless it would have 
been, had not the Gentile fishermen made his life 
a burden. These rude folk, heavily armed and 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 267 

often under the influence of liquor, invaded and 
broke up the meetings of the elect, debauched 
their women, fiercely warned new arrivals to leave 
before they could land at the dock, and spread re- 
ports that the sectarians were but freebooters who 
robbed the mails and sheltered counterfeiters. 

In 1850 the colony was, as a result of " revela- 
tions," reorganized as a "kingdom." There was a 
" royal press," from which issued the " Northern 
Islander," for Strang understood fully the power 
of printer's ink ; foreign ambassadors were ap- 
pointed ; and the leader was formally crowned 
(July 8) " king, apostle, seer, revelator, and trans- 
lator." The community system was abandoned, 
tithes were now collected, and polygamy estab- 
lished — Strang's allowance being five wives ; tea, 
coffee, and tobacco were prohibited, and schools 
and debating clubs opened. Creature comforts 
there were, in abundance ; the colonists exhibited 
a certain thrift, and some of the elements of civili- 
zation prevailed ; but they were a rough, illiterate, 
sensual people, easily influenced by a suave, intel- 
lectual fellow like Strang. 

The enemies of the " king " were not confined to 
the warring Gentile fishermen. With the growth 
of power, he had become harsh and absolute in his 
tone, thus arousing opposition in his own ranks. 
The malcontents did not hesitate to carry malicious 
tales of misdeeds to the mainland authorities, and 
soon newspapers in such lakeshore cities as Buffalo, 



268 WISCONSIN 

Cleveland, and Detroit contained long and sensa- 
tional reports of doings in the Kingdom of St. 
James. In May, 1851, Strang and a few of the 
chief apostles were arrested and taken on board a 
government steamer to Detroit, where they were 
tried for a long list of misdemeanors — among 
others, squatting on government land. Strang con- 
ducted the defense with remarkable ability and 
eloquence, and secured a release in the face of vio- 
lent popular prejudice against him. 

Two years later, now returning for a time into 
political life, and of course controlling a large vote, 
he was elected to the legislature, where his seat was 
unsuccessfully contested on the ground that he was 
an enemy to public welfare ; again he skillfully 
downed his opponents and proved a useful and 
tactful member. In 1855, however, like many an- 
other crowned head, he was assassinated by some 
of his own subjects. Not being immediately killed 
by the two bullets fired at him, he was taken on a 
stretcher to Voree by a small party of his followers. 
There, until death, he was carefully attended by his 
first and lawful wife, who had declined to follow 
him during his polygamous career on Beaver Island. 
Dying on July 9, Strang was buried at Voree (now 
Spring Prairie), which soon thereafter was aban- 
doned by the Mormons. As for St. James, the 
riotous fishermen promptly demolished the city 
with axe and torch, and its deluded inhabitants 
were driven forth to seek homes elsewhere. A 



TERRITORIAL PIONEERS 269 

few of them still dwell upon the islands off Green 
Bay and along the rugged shores of Door Pen- 
insula.^ 

1 See H. E. Legler, " A Moses of the Mormons," in Partman 
Club Papers^ vol. ii. 



CHAPTER XII 

TERRITORIAL AFFAIRS 

It will be remembered that the old Northwest 
Territory embraced all the lands between the Ohio 
and Mississippi rivers and the Great Lakes. The 
Ordinance of 1787 provided for the ultimate divi- 
sion of the territory into five states : three south of 
" an east and west line drawn through the southerly 
bend or extreme of Lake Michigan," and two north 
of it. Had this east and west line been strictly 
adhered to, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois would have 
had no footing whatever uj)on the Great Lakes. 
Upon one pretext or another, each of them, fortu- 
nately, was able to induce Congress to violate this 
provision and grant lake harbors to the southern tier 
of states. 

When Michigan, the fourth state of the Old 
Northwest, was being formed, much dissatisfaction 
was expressed in the peninsula that Ohio had been 
given Maumee Bay and the site of Toledo, and a 
clamor arose for Michigan's " ancient rights " to the 
east and west line of the ordinance as a southern 
boundary. It had always tacitly been understood 
that the fifth state, when formed, should have all 
of the land west of Lake Michigan and the River 



TERRITORIAL AFFAIRS 271 

St. Mary's. But before Wisconsin Territory was 
organized, Congress awarded to Michigan the upper 
peninsula as recompense for having lost Maii- 
mee Bay to Ohio, and a narrow strip abutting on 
Lake Michigan to Indiana. This arrangement was 
at the time unpopular in Michigan, whose people 
bitterly lamented the exchange ; but ultimately 
it proved a boon to that state, for the copper and 
iron mines of the upper peninsula came to be among 
her richest possessions. While benefiting Michi- 
gan, however, the transaction materially lessened 
Wisconsin's potential share of the Northwest 
Territory. 

The strip that Illinois had been granted (1818) 
along Lake Michigan, north of the east and west 
line, was sixty-one miles wide. Upon this splendid 
tract of 8500 square miles of agricultural and lead- 
mining lands are to-day planted the cities of Chi- 
cago, Evanston, Waukegan, Freeport, Rockford, 
Dixon, Elgin, and Galena, and between them is 
a populous and progressive rural district. All of 
this prosperous territory would now be within the 
limits of Wisconsin, had the letter of the ordinance 
been observed. 

Trouble over the Wisconsin- Michigan boundary 
began in March, 1836, when the bill for Wisconsin 
Territory was reported to the House of Representa- 
tives. An attempt was then made to regain for 
Wisconsin the greater part of Michigan's upper 
peninsula, but it was defeated, and what is sub- 



272 WISCONSIN 

stantially the present boundary was provided for ; 
but the description read that the line was to pro- 
ceed up Montreal River, from Lake Superior to 
Lake Vieux Desert ; thence down certain head- 
streams of the Menominee to the main channel of 
that river, and thence to Green Bay. A map of the 
region, used in the congressional committees, showed 
such a natural boundary extending from Lake Su- 
perior to Green Bay. But later, federal surveyors, 
in seeking to run the interstate line, established 
that there was no continuous waterway as depicted 
upon the old map, and that Lake Vieux Desert 
was far from being, as erroneously supposed by 
the cartographer, the common source of the Mon- 
treal and Menominee. It is, in fact, the head- 
waters of Wisconsin Kiver, and isolated from the 
two other streams. There was much haggling over 
this discovery, and subsequently over the compro- 
mises reached by the boundary surveyors. In Feb- 
ruarj^, 1842, Governor Doty declared it an " im- 
practicable line," and urged the legislature to take 
advantage of the situation to claim the upper pen- 
insula, which " belongs to the fifth state to be formed 
in Northwest Territory." 

Governor Dodge was responsible for inaugurat- 
ing the contention over the loss of territory to Il- 
linois. In December, 1838, he secured the adoption 
by the legislature of a vigorous memorial to Con- 
gress on the subject — a paper promptly pigeon- 
holed at Washington by the Senate judiciary com- 



TERRITORIAL AFFAIRS 273 

mittee. Thirteen months after this, resohitions were 
again adopted by the Wisconsin legislature, calling 
the attention of Congress to the fact that "a large 
and valuable tract of country is now held by the 
State of Illinois, contrary to the manifest right and 
consent of the people of this territory." 

These resolutions created an uproar on both sides 
of the line. In Illinois, curiously enough, popular 
sentiment in the fourteen northern counties inter- 
ested seemed strongly in favor of Wisconsin's 
claim ; but in Wisconsin itself public sentiment 
was generally against them. A public meeting at 
Green Bay " viewed the resolutions of the legislature 
with concern and regret," and that body was asked 
to rescind them. The reason for this opposition in 
Wisconsin will be evident, when it is explained that 
the fervor aroused by the two governors and other 
politicians at Madison over these boundary conten- 
tions was known to be in large measure induced by 
a desire to hurry Wisconsin into statehood; the 
large population south of the line being deemed 
necessary to pad the census, as an inducement to 
Congress to favor this project. Most people in the 
territory, however, were as yet unprepared to ac- 
cept statehood, with its attendant increase of taxes 
and responsibility. 

On taking office in 1841, Doty renewed the attack 
both on Michigan and Illinois with even greater 
bitterness, were that possible. He ordered out of 
the disputed tract to the south certain Illinois land 



274 WISCONSIN 

commissioners. Popular referendums were at his 
request held in the northern counties of that state, 
to pass upon the question of jurisdiction, in which 
elections Wisconsin carried the day. In June, 1842, 
he officially informed the governor of Illinois that 
the latter's commonwealth was *' exercising an ac- 
cidental and temporary jurisdiction " over a body 
of people who should be citizens of Wisconsin. 

In December, 1843, Doty again called the atten- 
tion of the legislature to both the Illinois and the 
Michigan boundary questions, once more standing 
stoutly for "the birthright of the State," the "an- 
cient limits of Wisconsin." Under his inspiration 
a strongly-worded report was prepared by a select 
Senate committee, who suggested that while there 
was little hope of getting other states to " surrender 
any rights of territory," once acquired. Congress 
should be requested to give Wisconsin, for the loss 
of territory, some recompense, such as Michigan 
had obtained for cessions on her southern border. 
This compensation, the committee thought, should 
come in the form of congressional appropriations for 
the construction of certain internal improvements 
within the territory, such as a railroad between 
Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, the improve- 
ment of the old Fox-Wisconsin waterway for the 
passage of large vessels between the Great Lakes 
and the Great River, a canal between the Fox and 
Rock rivers, and harbors at various ports on Lake 
Michigan. Should Congress not grant these reason- 



TERRITORIAL AFFAIRS 275 

able suggestions, the committee urge that Wiscon- 
sin take the attitude of " a state out of the Union, 
and possess, exercise, and enjoy all the rights, priv- 
ileges, and powers of the sovereign, independent 
State of Wisconsin, and if difficulties must ensue, 
we could appeal with confidence to the Great Um- 
pire of nations to adjust them." There was an ac- 
companying appeal to Congress " to do justice while 
yet it is not too late," for the people of Wisconsin 
"will show to the world that they lack neither the 
disposition nor the ability to protect themselves." 
This belligerent state paper, to which small at- 
tention appears to have been paid by the territorial 
press, aroused in the legislature an acrimonious de- 
bate, in which favorable speeches were mingled 
with others making scoffing allusion to the com- 
mittee report as a " declaration of war against Great 
Britain, Illinois, Michigan, and the United States." 
Finally adopted by a close vote, the memorial 
reached Congress in March, 1844. It is perhaps 
needless to add that that body paid no attention to 
the interesting communication ; and Wisconsin, for 
all the war talk of her state-rights politicans, re- 
gained none of the territory that had been taken 
from her. Indeed, in 1848, when Wisconsin be- 
came a state. Congress took from her, to give to 
Minnesota, the country between St. Croix River 
and the upper Mississippi, a vast and wealthy 
tract in which are now situated Duluth and much 
of the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. 



276 WISCONSIN 

From the first the people of the territory, in com- 
mon with their fellow citizens of several neighbor- 
ing states and territories, were much concerned in 
seeking federal aid for internal improvements. 
This quest was pursued by Wisconsin with a some- 
what feverish persistence that gives point to the 
futile "demands" made upon Congress in connec- 
tion v/ith the boundary dispute. But the Demo- 
cratic party, dominant at the time of Wisconsin's 
entrance upon the scene as a territory, was opposed 
to appropriations for this purpose; and even the 
Whigs, who gained power in 1840, were in this 
respect illiberal towards Wisconsin, the result being 
that during the entire territorial period there was 
obtained but a small fraction of the improvements 
sought. 

As early as 1836 there was a popular agitation 
in favor of a federal canal to connect Milwaukee 
and Rock rivers, with the design of thus furnish- 
ing continuous navigation between Lake Michigan 
and the Mississippi. Despairing, however, of ob- 
taining a congressional appropriation therefor, a 
number of prominent citizens secured from the 
legislature (1838) a charter for the Milwaukee and 
Rock River Canal Company. The territory was 
promptly solicited for the loan of its credit to float 
the enterprise. This request was ultimately refused, 
after a protracted fight, partly because of jealousy 
manifested by the promoters of the Fox- Wisconsin 
enterprise, but chiefly because the people at large 



TERRITORIAL AFFAIRS 277 

had an almost morbid fear of incurring any man- 
ner of territorial debt. 

Congress, however, voted a land grant in assist- 
ance of the project (1838), with the stipulation 
that the territory was to conduct sales therefrom 
and use the income in completing the canal. In ac- 
cepting this gift, the territory unwittingly became 
in effect a partner in the undertaking, a condition 
of affairs leading to much popular discontent and 
legislative bickering, and ultimate disaster to the 
canal (1844), upon which some fifty-seven thou- 
sand dollars had been expended, chiefly in improve- 
ments to Milwaukee River. The territory fell heir 
to some of the canal bonds, which it repudiated, 
although later the state itself paid them. When 
Wisconsin entered the Union, the federal govern- 
ment claimed that she still was owing upwards of 
a hundred thousand dollars to the canal fund, and 
withheld this sum from the net proceeds due the 
state from the sale of public lands within her 
bounds.^ As to whether or not this canal, had it been 
completed as designed, would have proved a valu- 
able asset of the commonwealth, is still an open 
question in Wisconsin history. 

Suggestions for the improvement of the Fox and 
Wisconsin rivers, especially for a canal connecting 

^ See W. R. Smith, History of Wisconsin^ vol. iii ; M. B. Ham- 
mond, " Financial History of Wisconsin Territory," in Wis. Hist. 
Soc. Proceedings^ 1893; andR. V. Phelan, " Financial History of 
Wisconsin,'' in Univ. of Wis. Bulletins, No. 193. 



278 WISCONSIN 

them at Portage, had frequently been made during 
the French regime, as well as in the English and 
the early American. A definite project therefor 
began in 1839 to be actively pushed in the territo- 
rial legislature. Seven years later, Congress made 
a grant of land in its aid. In 1848 the improve- 
ment was placed by the legislature in the hands of 
a board of public works, and by 1851 the long- 
desired canal at Portage united the two divergent 
waterways. The latter year, a contract for better- 
ing the navigation of the Fox was awarded to 
Morgan L. Martin, who later organized the Fox 
and Wisconsin Improvement Company. This cor- 
poration, although the victim of political wrangling, 
for party tactics and sectional jealousies then en- 
tered into almost every walk of life, was aided by 
increased land grants from Congress. 

In time, however, since the work assumed larger 
porportions than anticipated. Eastern capital was 
invited to assist in the growing enterprise. This 
alliance led, along a stormy path which we need 
not here follow, to financial complications, bank- 
ruptcy, and foreclosure ; and in 1872 the federal 
government purchased the works. 

First and last, millions of dollars were spent by 
individual capitalists and the nation upon this time- 
honored project. Indeed, until about 1875 a dispo- 
sition to battle for appropriations for this purpose 
was a cardinal qualification required of candidates 
for Congress in northern and central Wisconsin. 



TERRITORIAL AFFAIRS 279 

Nothing now remains to show for the lavish ex- 
penditure save an admirable water-power system 
on the lower Fox, a still shallow and weedy chan- 
nel on the upper Fox above Berlin, and on the 
Wisconsin below Portage a few shabby remnants 
of wing dams vainly designed to control its shifting 
sands. Except at unusually high stages of water, 
navigation over this once great fur-trade route 
between Green Bay and Prairie du Chien is now 
possible only to row boats and light-draught pleas- 
ure launches, and sometimes even these meet with 
difficulties on the Wisconsin. In short, the route 
was practicable only so long as its use was con- 
fined to canoes, bateaux, barges, and timber rafts 
— both rivers were of immense importance in the 
heyday of Wisconsin lumbering, — but no engin- 
eering skill has been able to adapt it, throughout, 
to deep-draught vessels of the present time. 

Although the inhabitants west of Lake Michi- 
gan came under American domination in 1816, we 
have seen that, although they were citizens of 
Michigan, because of their great distance from 
Detroit the machinery of local government was 
tardily established among them. Taxes were not 
collected anywhere within the district before 1820- 
21, and then only in Crawford County, which seems 
to have been a more pliant member of Michigan 
Territory than was Brown County ; in the Fox 
River valley, Michigan statutes were frequently 
ignored, and relations with the Detroit government 



280 WISCONSIN 

were more or less strained. Local assessments ap- 
pear to have been made from time to time in Green 
Bay, but apparently no regular tax was levied until 
after 1833. It was, indeed, not until the organiza- 
tion of Wisconsin Territory that all of the region 
included within its bounds came under the opera- 
tions of a well-regulated system of administration. 
The tax-gatherer is nowhere a welcome visitor. 
In a sparsely- settled community like this, that had 
long existed with but few forms of government, 
and where little convertible wealth had as yet ac- 
cumulated, schemes for obtaining public revenue 
were necessarily unpopular. Plans for taxation 
were keenly criticised by our pioneers, and every 
public expenditure found its opponents. Even the 
school taxes of 1838-40 created much dissatisfac- 
tion, and for a time they necessarily were made 
optional with the community. The expenses of the 
annual legislative session aroused special antag- 
onism. It was pointed out in 1844 that whereas 
the whole assessment of the territory was but eight 
million dollars, the meeting of the legislature alone 
cost eighty thousand, or one per cent of the valua- 
tion. The Grant County " Herald " indignantly ex- 
postulated (September 14, 1844) that this meant, 
" We shall be compelled to pay nearly two per cent 
of a tax on all our property assessed ! " Despite 
the fact that at one time (1842) Congress liquid- 
ated the territorial debt of forty-five thousand 
dollars, it still had upon entering the Union a new 



TERRITORIAL AFFAIRS 281 I 



debt of nearly thirteen thousand, the greater part 
of it, however, being the unpaid bonds of the un- 
fortunate Milwaukee and Rock River Canal. 

Even before the coming of American troops to 
Green Bay, the great pine, hard wood, and mixed 
forests of the northern two-thirds of Wisconsin be- 
gan to play some part in the economic development 
of the region ; in time lumbering (chiefly of white 
pine) came to be Wisconsin's foremost industry, 
and so remained until quite recent years. No less 
than seven large rivers, with their many tributa- 
ries, drained the enormous " pineries," enabling 
logs to be floated to far-distant markets, and occa- 
sionally furnishing power for sawmills. Six clearly- 
defined lumbering districts were thereby estab- 
lished, — the shore of Green Bay, Wolf River, 
Wisconsin River, Black River, Chij^pewa and Red 
Cedar, and the Wisconsin branch of the St. Croix. 

So far as is now known, the first sawmill in the 
state was built in 1809, near De Pere. No other 
appears to have been established in the Green Bay 
district until twenty years later, on Pensaukee, 
River, but important lumbering operations are not 
recorded before 1834. The Wolf River district was 
not operated in until 1835. It would seem that 
soldiers were cutting logs on the Wisconsin, for 
the building of Fort Winnebago (Portage), in 
1826 ; and on the same river three years later, for 
Fort Crawford (Prairie du Chien). Black River 
was very early entered upon by loggers, a mill 



282 WISCONSIN 

being built at Black River Falls in 1819 ; but be- 
cause of Indian opposition the industry was aban- 
doned until 1839. Logging operations were com- 
menced on various branches of the Chippewa as 
early as 1822, but disastrous freshets and aboriginal 
hostility compelled a retreat of the lumbermen ; 
a successful mill was finally erected in 1828 on the 
site of the present Menomonie. In the height of 
the Wisconsin lumber industry (about 1876) a 
billion and a half feet of pine was annually mar- 
keted, some eighteen thousand men being employed 
in the various stages of production, — cutting, raft- 
ing, river-driving, and manufacturing timber and 
shingles. To-day by far the greater part of our 
original forests has been cut over. The principal 
Wisconsin operators, who have amassed large for- 
tunes in this once enormous industry, are now 
similarly exploiting the woods of Southern and 
far Northwestern states; while the commonwealth, 
now that its supply of pine, once supposedly ex- 
haustless, has been seriously depleted, is for the 
•benefit of future generations energetically plan- 
ning to reforest some of the great areas of gaunt 
and neglected " cut-over " lands. 

During the first half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, " wildcat " financial methods were in vogue 
throughout the Middle West. Together with her 
sister commonwealths, Wisconsin had much un- 
fortunate experience with banks and bankers of 
this disreputable sort. The Bank of Wisconsin, at 



TERRITORIAL AFFAIRS 283 

Green Bay, opened in 1834, was the first institu- 
tion of its kind west of Lake Michigan ; it was fol- 
lowed two years later by banks at Mineral Point 
and Milwaukee, and the year after that by another 
at Prairie du Chien. The financial panic of 1837, 
combined with reckless management by their of- 
ficers, brought these banks into serious trouble. 
The Prairie du Chien institution was of short dura- 
tion ; the Green Bay and Milwaukee banks had 
their charters annulled by the legislature (1839) 
because of irregularity, and that at Mineral Point 
failed (1841) with heavy loss, its charter being 
thereafter promptly repealed. 

Nominally there were now no banks in the terri- 
tory. But, patterning by the example of Illinois, 
there had been organized two insurance corporations, 
one at Green Bay (1838) and the other at Mil- 
waukee (1839), which, although not styled banks, 
performed all their functions. Their charters con- 
tained stipulations to the effect that " nothing herein 
contained shall give banking privileges ; " never- 
theless the recitation of powers, adroitly phrased, 
included all that any legitimate bank could wish to 
do. This plain violation of the intent of the legis- 
lature led that body to proceed to extraordinary 
length in seeking to prevent further corporations 
of any sort from like transgressions. No plank-road, 
mining and smelting, navigation and transporta- 
tion, or even church society could be incorporated 
until a clause had been inserted in its charter to 



284 WISCONSIN 

the effect that " nothing herein contained shall be 
construed as in any way giving to the said company 
any banking privileges whatever or any right to 
issue any certificate of deposit, or other evidence 
of debt to circulate as money." 

Despite its irregularity in doing a business not 
intended by the legislature, the Wisconsin Marine 
and Fire Insurance Company of Milwaukee soon 
came to be an important factor in the betterment 
of banking methods in the West. The corporation 
was, almost from the first, largely managed by its 
secretary, Alexander Mitchell, a young but emi- 
nently skillful Scotch banker from Aberdeen. In the 
general scarcity of reputable currency, its certifi- 
cates of deposit, invariably paid on presentation, 
came into wide circulation, and " Mitchell's bank," 
as it was popularly called, did a thriving business 
in assisting colonists to take up government land. 
Its manager's reputation became as wide as the 
nation, and although at one time he had in circu- 
lation a million and a half dollars' worth of paper, 
the integrity of which rested simply on his promise 
to pay, the Milwaukee company was the only 
financial concern in the Northwest that stood the 
pressure of the times and maintained itself without 
a flaw. 

The legislature, beset by Mitchell's rivals, fre- 
quently sought to check him in his prosperous 
although technically illegal career. In 1845 his 
charter was annulled ; but as that document gave 



TERRITORIAL AFFAIRS 285 

the company existence until 1868, the latter per- 
sisted in transacting business, and when enjoined 
in Milwaukee made arrangements to pay notes in 
Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and elsewhere. For 
years, amidst this persecution, Mitchell was neces- 
sarily legislative lobbyist as well as banker, and 
successful in both pursuits. In 1852 a general 
banking act was passed ; whereupon, simply add- 
ing the word " Bank " to its former title, the com- 
pany opened the first regular bank in Milwaukee, 
under the new law. Years of wildcat experiences 
were still before the people of the West, but 
throughout this protracted financial storm Mitch- 
ell's institution, Scotch-like in integrity and per- 
sistence, stood like a rock. 

President Tyler removed Governor Doty in the 
autumn of 1844, and appointed in his place (Sep- 
tember 16) Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, who served 
but for eight months, being succeeded by Dodge, 
who, as the nominee of Polk, occupied the executive 
office until Wisconsin entered the Union. The 
agitation for statehood was at once renewed on 
Dodge's resumption of office. The census of the 
territory now revealed a population of a hundred 
and fifty-five thousand, and popular opinion, for 
several years averse to taking on the costs and 
responsibilities of state government, seemed at last 
inclined to view the project with favor. By order 
of the legislature a vote on this question was taken 
on the first Tuesday of April, 1846, — the franchise 



286 WISCONSIN 

being restricted to " every white male inhabitant 
above the age of twenty-one years, who shall have 
resided in the territory for six months." The result 
was about six to one in the affirmative (ayes 12,334, 
nays 2487). Meanwhile, a bill enabling Wisconsin 
to become a state was introduced in Congress, Janu- 
ary 9, by Morgan L. Martin, the territorial delegate. 
Passing Congress, it was approved by the President 
on August 10. 

Governor Dodge issued on the first of August a 
proclamation calling a constitutional convention, 
which held its session at Madison between October 
5 and December 16. In this body some pugnacious 
members desired to place in the constitution a pro- 
viso that Wisconsin would accept statehood only on 
the condition that she be '' restored to her ancient 
boundaries." But this bit of bluster failed of pas- 
sage, as did another proposition to establish a new 
state along the south shore of Lake Superior, to be 
named after that body of water ; the settlers who 
were now creeping into the extreme northern lit- 
toral had the same objection to being connected 
with far-distant Madison, separated from them by 
a wide and almost untrodden wilderness, that the 
earlier Wisconsin people had against being gov- 
erned from Detroit. The constitution, for the most 
part an exceptionally able document, was rejected 
by the people (April 5, 1847), upon a vote of ayes 
14,119, nays 20,231. The Democrats opposed the 
articles on the rights of married women and ex- 



TERRITORIAL AFFAIRS 287 

emptions from forced sale ; while the Whigs dis- 
liked the restrictions that, with a caution born of 
intense popular distrust, had been placed upon 
banking and bank circulation.^ 

The second constitutional convention assembled 
in Madison on December 15. The territory now 
boasted of a population of 210,456, and the de- 
sire for statehood had become all but universal. 
The new constitution, carefully avoiding the rocks 
upon which its predecessor had been wrecked, was 
adopted by the people on March 13, 1848 (ayes 
16,799, nays 6384). On the eighth of May a state 
election was held, Nelson Dewey, the Democratic 
candidate, being elected by a majority of 5089 in 
a total vote of 33,987. Three weeks later (May 
29), President Polk approved a new act of Con- 
gress, based upon the accepted constitution, whereby 
Wisconsin was at last admitted to the sisterhood 
of states. 

1 Banks of issue were prohibited, also the circulation of any 
bank-note of a less denomination than twenty dollars. 



CHAPTER XIII 

ECONOMIC EXPERIENCES 

In his opening message to the legislature (June 
8, 1848), Governor Dewey offered congratulations 
upon the " favorable auspices under which the 
State of Wisconsin has taken her position among 
the families of states. With a population number- 
ing nearly one quarter of a million, and rapidly 
increasing, free from the incubus of a state debt, 
and rich in the return yielded as the reward of 
labor in all the branches of industrial pursuits, our 
state occupies an enviable position abroad, that is 
highly gratifying to the pride of our people." 

A commonwealth just entering the Union nearly 
always receives a large accession of new settlers, as 
the result of prominence given to the new state in 
the contemporary public press. Accordingly, Wis- 
consin at once attracted the customary rush of am- 
bitious young Americans seeking an opening in the 
West. But the most marked feature of her growth 
during the first decade of statehood was a con- 
siderable influx of German immigrants. For two 
hundred years after the coming of Nicolet, Wis- 
consin had been French to the core. There followed 
twelve territorial years (1836-48) during which 



ECONOMIC EXPERIENCES 289 

the American element, having pushed aside the 
mild-mannered and unprogressive hahitans and 
voyageurs^ was aggressively dominant ; but now 
Wisconsin was to become better known for her 
Germans than for her native-born. 

Several causes contributed to this strong Teutonic 
migration toward Wisconsin. The political upris- 
ing of 1830 in Germany had been followed by 
reaction, causing thousands to turn their eyes to 
America as a land of liberty and opportunity. As 
early as 1832 there was on foot in Rhenish Ba- 
varia a project to purchase a large tract of land in 
the United States "to be settled by Germans and 
to be called a new Germany." Three years later 
there were organized for this purpose several socie- 
ties, largely composed of political suspects and 
refugees, chiefly men trained for the learned pro- 
fessions. Numerous books and pamphlets were 
published in Germany, in advocacy of this scheme, 
several of whose authors named Wisconsin as the 
most desirable region attainable. Eventually the 
plan was abandoned by the majority as impracti- 
cable, although it was spasmodically broached 
thereafter, even as late as 1878. 

Throughout this agitation, the attention of many 
thousands of discontented Germans had become 
centred on Wisconsin as a land of promise. So 
much was written and printed on the subject that 
the characteristics of the territory were familiar to 
them in a general way. The larger movement for a 



290 WISCONSIN 

German- American state had failed ; but individual 
agitators began to arrive here by 1846, and almost 
to a man sent highly favorable reports to their 
compatriots at home, many of which accounts, the 
product of men accustomed to literary expression, 
were printed and very freely distributed among a 
people eager to receive them. Knowledge of these 
publications no doubt prompted Governor Dewey's 
reference to the fact that Wisconsin " occupies an 
enviable position abroad." 

The German-American pioneers who thus her- 
alded this new American commonwealth found here 
physical features appealing strongly to them be- 
cause similar in many respects to those sturdy 
surroundings amid which they had themselves 
been reared ; and the political possibilities of Wis- 
consin also kindled the imaginations of men who 
were fleeing their own land in order to secure 
personal liberty. In their books, pamphlets, and 
newspaper letters they laid emphasis on the ex- 
cellent climate — with extremes of temperature 
modified by proximity to the Great Lakes, less 
enervating than that of Michigan, and " compara- 
tively free from the fevers that infest the South." 
The unbroken hard wood and evergreen forests 
in the northern half of the state, and the tract of 
heavy timber along the eastern border, inspired 
them with admiration. Unlike Illinois, Michigan, 
and Indiana, that had encumbered themselves 
with liabilities for internal improvements, Wiscon- 



ECONOMIC EXPERIENCES 291 

sin was practically out of debt. Potential water- 
power was everywhere evident upon the maps, and 
promised to be an important asset to the people of 
the state. The mineral regions on Lake Superior 
and along the Mississippi appealed strongly to 
many classes of German laborers. Well-wooded 
public lands were sold to emigrants at low prices; 
tree-loving Germans, in settling Wisconsin, always 
sought forests near the main routes of travel, — 
first in the eastern counties, and then spreading 
into the denser woods of the north, which they 
soon converted into a productive and prosperous 
region. But perhaps the most influential factor in 
inducing foreign immigration was the clause in the 
new state's constitution, allowing an alien to vote 
after a year's residence, thus giving him an early 
chance of winning political power. 

The year of Wisconsin's entrance upon the dig- 
nity of statehood was that of the great political, 
economic, and social upheaval in Germany known 
as the Revolution of 1848. This gave rise at once 
to a strong tide of migration hither. It was par- 
ticularly gratifying to the emigrants of those days 
to find their predilections regarding Wisconsin 
confirmed at the landing. " In New York," writes 
a German settler of 1848, " every hotel-keeper and 
railroad agent, every one who was approached for 
advice, directed men to Wisconsin." Later dis- 
tarbances in the fatherland, in which religious in- 
terference and the steady growth of militarism had 



292 WISCONSIN 

become additional incentives to popular discontent, 
materially aided tins movement to our state. Al- 
though reaching its maximum in numbers by 1854, 
it continued with noticeable strength until near the 
close of the nineteenth century, and brought to 
the state immigrants from nearly every important 
district in Germany. To-day, perhaps a third of 
the two millions of Wisconsin people are either 
German-born or the children of such. 

In due time the Germans were followed in large 
numbers by other European nationalities, particu- 
larly Scandinavians (chiefly Norwegians), Irish, 
natives of Great Britain, Canadians, Bohemians, 
Poles, Dutch, Belgians, and Swiss. By 1890 Wis- 
consin was surpassed only by Pennsylvania in the 
variety and solidarity of its groups of foreign-born 
folk. There are still many portions of the state 
where some single nationality occupies blocks of 
contiguous townships, controlling within the dis- 
trict all political, educational, and religious affairs; 
and in such neighborhoods the English language is 
but occasionally spoken. But, ordinarily, our citi- 
zens of European birth are quick to adopt English 
speech and American customs, and freely enter 
upon the privileges and duties of citizenship. It is 
a matter for congratulation that the immigrant 
often brings from the Old World fruits of civili- 
zation that are of value to the New ; in casting off 
the old political relations, he does not thereby free 
himself from the experiences, culture, and patriotic 



ECONOMIC EXPERIENCES 293 

sentiments binding him to his forbears. Wisconsin 
will always be deeply indebted to this strong infu- 
sion of foreign blood for much that is creditable 
in its career as a state. 

The first Norwegian settler to appear in Wiscon- 
sin seems to have been Ole Nattestad, who reared 
a home near Beloit in 1838. He was soon joined 
by others, until now this element of Wisconsin's 
population is second only to the German. Strong- 
est in Dane County, Norwegians are nevertheless 
to be found in large groups in every western and 
northern county, and in several of the eastern. 
There are large neighborhoods of Swedes in the 
northwestern part of the state, but they number 
far less than those who come from the sister land. 
Danes are found in considerable bodies in Adams, 
Milwaukee, Racine, and Waushara counties. Fin- 
landers are numerous in Douglas County. On 
Washington Island, in the waters of Green Bay, 
is a large colony of Icelandic fishermen. 

Poles are widespread, although chiefly massed in 
Milwaukee, Manitowoc, and Portage counties. In 
Kewaunee County, Bohemians form three sevenths 
of the population, and are also to be found grouped 
in other districts. Belgians are strongest in Brown 
and Door counties. The Dutch are also particu- 
larly numerous in the northeast. German Swiss 
have prosperous colonies in Green, Fond du Lac, 
Winnebago, Buffalo, and Pierce counties. Italians 
are a later accession than most of the other nation- 



294 WISCONSIN 

alities ; they have considerable communities in 
Vernon and Florence counties, but recent arrivals 
are much scattered. Russians of the several types 
are chiefly found in Milwaukee, but neighbor- 
hoods of Russian Jews are beginning to appear in 
most of our cities. In addition to French Creoles 
in the old fur-trading centres of the Fox and Wis- 
consin valleys, direct descendants of the population 
of the old regime, there are modern French Cana- 
dian settlements in several northern counties — 
attracted thither, no doubt, by service for the lum- 
ber companies. 

Cornishmen early settled in the lead region, 
which also contains several important English 
groups. The Welsh are planted on Wisconsin soil 
in several large neighborhoods, chiefly in Winne- 
bago, Columbia, Dodge, Sauk, and Racine counties. 
The Irish, formerly strong in southeast Wisconsin, 
have in most places given way before the German 
wave, and are now widely distributed, although 
often living in small colonies. Scotch are found in 
large numbers, particularly in the eastern and north- 
ern counties. 

The importance of early lead-mining operations, 
in opening to civilization the southwestern corner 
of W^isconsin, has been pointed out. We shall see 
that this industry did much to hasten the develop- 
ment of the entire southern tier of counties, as well 
as that of the state at large. From the first, the 
people of the mining district had been closely con- 



ECONOMIC EXPERIENCES 295 

nected, socially and commercially, witli the South. 
Men from neighboring slave states had been the 
chief operators, and were frequently accompanied 
by their black servants ; their principal transpor- 
tation route was the Mississippi, and their chief 
markets St. Louis and New Orleans, steamers bring- 
ing back to them Southern products in return for 
ore. Cincinnati, Pittsburg, and other Ohio River 
ports furnished markets for a fair share of the out- 
put. Small shipments of lead ore had also been 
made to the East by way of the Fox-Wisconsin 
route as early as 1822, and continued at intervals 
for at least twenty years, forming one of the strong- 
est arguments for the federal improvement of those 
rivers. Most observers supposed, however, that the 
Mississippi must forever continue to be the main 
artery of trade for the lead region. 

But a great change was coming. After the com- 
pletion of the Erie Canal (1826), Eastern mer- 
chants slowly became convinced of the superiority 
of that waterway and the Great Lakes as a West- 
ern trade route, over the Mississippi River and the 
long gulf and sea voyage to New York. In 1836 a 
company was formed for a combined wagon and 
steamboat transport between Chicago and Galena, 
the principal entrepot of the mines. By this means 
cargoes of lead ore were shipped to Eastern mar- 
kets ; and from Chicago, on the return trips, were 
transported lumber, shingles, and Eastern goods 
destined to the mines. 



296 WISCONSIN 

How early Wisconsin miners sought connection 
with the lakes by overland wagon routes is not 
known, but lead shipments " from the rapids of 
Rock River" were recorded in Racine in 1836; 
and in 1838 the " Milwaukee Sentinel " declares 
it " a common thing to see oxen laden with lead 
from Grant and La Fayette counties appear at the 
wharves after a journey of eight or ten days," the 
distance traveled, by road, being from a hundred 
and twenty-five to two hundred miles. 

In 1839-40 a phenomenally low stage of water 
prevailed in the Mississippi, creating a stagnant 
condition in the lead trade, and leading to loud 
demands, not only for the improvement of the 
great river, but for better and shorter routes to 
the East. Specifically, it was pointed out that there 
were needed both railways and canals between the 
Mississippi and Lake Michigan. The Milwaukee 
and Rock River Canal, previously alluded to, was 
one of the desired connecting links ; another was 
the important waterway opened in 1851 between 
Lake Michigan and Illinois River, the route fol- 
lowed by the wagon express of 1836. Meanwhile 
the wagon routes between the mines and Lake 
Michigan ports — one ran out from Milwaukee by 
way of Madison, and along the watershed separat- 
ing; Wisconsin River drainasfe from that of south- 
flowing streams, while another stretched westward 
from Racine, via Janesville — were becoming well 
worn in the service of the now desperate operators. 



ECONOMIC EXPERIENCES 297 

In 1847 a Milwaukee paper says, " The lead schoon- 
ers are constantly arriving here from the mineral 
region. These singular teams drawn by six, eight, 
or more yoke of oxen, excite some curiosity in 
those who are not used to such sights at the East. 
They sleep under the canopy of heaven, with the 
camp fires and the primitive meals of a military 
encampment, pitching tents with the first dusk of 
evening and rising with the early dawn." The 
roads followed by these pioneer ore carriers fur- 
nished to agricultural settlers tempting paths from 
the lake shore into the interior, and were an im- 
portant element in the development of the southern 
counties. 

By this time Wisconsin was growing larger crops 
than her population could consume, and farmers 
had joined the miners in clamoring for an improved 
outlet to Eastern markets. Flour and pork, together 
with lead, were regularly shipped from Milwaukee 
to Buffalo, these three Wisconsin products appear- 
ing thenceforth in market quotations from that 
distributing centre. ^ The Great Lakes and the Erie 
Canal furnished a through water route from Lake 
Michigan to the Atlantic seaboard, that could 
transport freight at less than half the expense of 
the Mississippi Kiver and Gulf route, and enabled 
shippers to "get the proceeds of their sales at 
least three months sooner than by the way of New 

1 See O. G. Libby, " Significance of the Lead and Shot Trade 
in Early Wisconsin History," in Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xiii. 



298 WISCONSIN 

Orleans." But while this benefited the lead miners, 
and correspondingly depressed lower Mississippi 
River traffic,^ the cost of overland hauling was 
so great — thirty-one cents per hundred pounds of 
lead, between the Mississippi and Milwaukee — 
that only farmers in eastern Wisconsin could afford 
to send their crops to the Milwaukee and Racine 
docks. In the interior, agriculture was declining 
for want of a cheap and adequate road to market. 
The " Grant County Herald " (April 8, 1843) de- 
clared that " the positive result of this state of 
things, if continued, will be the gradual depopu- 
lation of the western part of the territory." For 
reasons soon to be explained, even the mines in 
that district were now losing workmen, who mi- 
grated in considerable numbers to the Lake Super- 
ior copper fields or joined the restless throng then 
pressing westward on the long trail to Oregon. 

1 In De Boiv's Review, vol. xii (1852), p. 38, a Southern writer, 
bewailing the diversions of the channels of Western trade from 
southward to eastward, says : " All the lead from the upper Mis- 
sissippi now goes east by the way of Milwaukee. But the most 
recent and astonishing change in the course of the northwestern 
trade is to behold, as a friend tells us, the number of steamers 
that now descend the upper Mississippi, loaded to the guards with 
produce, as far as the mouth of the Illinois River, and then turn 
up that stream with their cargoes, to be shipped to New York via 
Chicago. The Illinois canal has not only swept the whole produce 
along the line of the Illinois River to the East, but it is drawing 
the products from the upper Mississippi through the same chan- 
nel, thus depriving not only New Orleans, but St. Louis, of a rich 
portion of their former trade." 



ECONOMIC EXPERIENCES 299 

It had early been evident to at least a few clear- 
sighted Wisconsin men, that while canals might 
serve for certain classes of freight, a railroad would 
be a quicker and more efficient route between the 
Mississippi and Lake Michigan. A project for such 
construction was first broached in a memorial to 
Congress adopted by the Michigan territorial legis- 
lature at its Green Bay session in January, 1836, 
in which was emphasized " the immense saving that 
might [thereby] be made in transporting lead " to 
New York. 

In early railway agitation in Wisconsin, pro- 
spective benefit to the lead trade furnished the 
principal argument for such enterprises. But after 
1845, the fast-developing agricultural interests 
received chief consideration ; it being estimated in 
1846 that the farm products (chiefly wheat) to be 
moved by the proposed road between the great river 
and the great lake, would probably yield a traffic 
revenue five times that obtainable from shipments 
of lead, which could contribute only twelve per 
cent of the total. 

Not only was there a relative falling off in the 
Mississippi Kiver lead trade, but after 1847 came 
a steady decline in the actual output. New Orleans 
had practically lost this trade by 1857, and in St. 
Louis the shipments of that year were less than 
half those of the previous decade. Many reasons 
contributed to this rapid decadence of lead-mining 
in Wisconsin and Illinois ; the tariff of 1846 had 



300 WISCONSIN 

reduced the value of the ore ; the old shallow dig- 
gings had been worked out, and now there were 
required expensive mining methods and large cap- 
ital, together with a more intimate knowledge of 
the geology of the region than was then obtain- 
able ; California gold mines and Lake Superior cop- 
per deposits were attracting the miners ; we have 
seen that transportation difficulties were coming to 
be a large factor in the problem ; and the discovery 
in the Rocky Mountains and Black Hills of silver, 
with accompanying lead, tended to accentuate the 
virtual neglect of the Wisconsin-Illinois field. Dur- 
ing the past few years, however, the district has 
been successfully reopened for the extensive min- 
ing of zinc. 

The project of Asa Whitney, a New York mer- 
chant, to construct a government railway from 
Wisconsin to the mouth of Columbia River, and 
thereby reach out for the trade of the Pacific, was 
in 1845 much talked of throughout the country. 
His prospecting journey through Wisconsin in that 
year attracted much attention, because a proposed 
road between Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien was 
considered to be the initial step in his ambitious 
scheme. Whitney's plans failed ; the country was 
not yet ready for them, but they did much to 
stimulate public imagination, and in Wisconsin 
were of direct assistance in calling marked atten- 
tion to the local project. 

Railway charters had been granted by the legis- 



ECONOMIC EXPERIENCES 301 

lature quite early in the history of the territory : 
in December, 1836, to the La Fontaine and Du- 
buque and Belmont companies ; in 1838 to the 
Boot River ; in 1839 to the Pekatonica and Mis- 
sissippi ; and in 1840 to the Michigan and Rock 
River — none of these corporations progressed 
beyond the paper stage. In 1847, four companies 
were chartered ; but only one of these, the Mil- 
waukee and Waukesha, became active.^ A year 
later its name was changed to the Milwaukee and 
Mississippi, the progenitor of the present far- 
stretching Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul sys- 
tem. In 1851, that company laid the first rails in 
Wisconsin, and amid great popular rejoicing ran a 
train from Milwaukee to Waukesha, a distance of 
twenty miles. Three years later this pioneer rail- 
way reached Madison, and in 1857 touched the 
Mississippi at Prairie du Chien, just twenty-one 
years after the first suggestion of the project for 
rail connection between that river and Lake 
Michigan. 

Meanwhile, other companies were pushing into 
the state. The Chicago and Northwestern, now one 
of the largest systems in the United States, reached 
Janesville from the southeast in 1855 and Fond 
du Lac in 1858. Other and shorter lines were now 
constructed in various parts of Wisconsin, these 

^ See B. H. Meyer, " History of Early Railroad Legislation in 
Wisconsin," in Wis. Hist. Colls., vol. xiv. 



302 WISCONSIN 

being for the most part absorbed, extended, and 
ramified by the two larger companies. 

In June, 1856, Congress made two large land 
grants for the construction of railways in Wiscon- 
sin : one in aid of a line to extend from either 
Madison or Columbus, via Portage and St. Croix 
River, to the Lake Superior town of Bayfield ; the 
other to endow a line from Fond du Lac to some 
point on the Michigan- Wisconsin boundary. The 
prospective companies were to be given " every al- 
ternate section of land designated by odd numbers 
for six sections in width, on each side of said roads 
respectively." 

At the succeeding session of the legislature, the 
existing railroad companies engaged in a mad 
scramble for these rich prizes. But with a show 
of impartiality, the lawmakers declined to allow 
them the lands, and chartered two new companies 
pledged to construct the lines : the Lake Superior 
grant being given to the so-called La Crosse and 
Milwaukee (charged with being merely a tool of the 
Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul), and the Fond 
du Lac grant to the Wisconsin and Superior (sup- 
posed to be dominated by the Chicago and North- 
western). Indeed, it was not long before these 
popular suspicions received apparent confirmation 
by the " absorption " of the grantee corporations by 
the two companies respectively named. Later, legal 
complications arose, calling into question the right- 
ful ownership of the grants. 



ECONOMIC EXPERIENCES 303 

Among the people at large, grave suspicions were 
entertained that these legislative railway " deals," 
particularly that of the La Crosse and Milwaukee, 
had been accompanied by wholesale corruption. In 
1858, a special joint legislative committee reported 
that "the managers of the La Crosse and Mil- 
waukee Railroad Comj)any have been guilty of 
numerous and unparalleled acts of mismanagement, 
gross violations of duty, fraud, and plunder ; " that 
a majority of the legislature of 1856 had been 
bribed ; that of the seventeen senators voting for 
the grant, thirteen had each received from $10,000 
to rf20,000 in either stock or bonds, at par ; that 
fifty-eight of the sixty-two complacent assembly- 
men had each been recipients of from $5000 to 
810,000 in the same paper ; that Governor Bashford 
had, for his signature approving the act, been 
" propitiated " by $50,000 in bonds ; that each of 
three other state officers had accepted $10,000 in 
similar securities ; and that even the private secre- 
tary of the governor had contrived to secure from 
the conspirators a like $5000. 

The popular excitement engendered by this docu- 
ment at once reached fever heat, and the state re- 
ceived a great deal of undesirable advertising in 
the newspapers of the country. Several of the al- 
leged beneficiaries promptly denied that they had 
taken bribes. Governor Bashford, now out of of- 
fice, quietly removed into the Far West, and was 
commonly credited with having disposed of the 



304 WISCONSIN 

greater part of his bonds for cash, — more fortu- 
nate in this than those who retained their paper, 
for the La Crosse and Milwaukee company soon 
went into liquidation, and its bonds and stock were 
worthless. 



CHAPTER XIV 
"politics" and national relations 

The dozen years just previous to the War of 
Secession were, particularly in the Western states, 
a period of great political, financial, and social 
unrest. The trans- Alleghany was in a formative 
stage, not yet having "found itself." Speculation 
ran high ; the gambling spirit begat gambling 
morals ; political passions beat fiercely ; never in 
our history as a people have the " tricks of the 
politicians " been more questionable than they then 
were ; personal vituperation served as argument ; 
newspaper offices were the seats of partisan cabals, 
which seldom paused to consider the means of 
accomplishing desired ends ; it was commonly ac- 
cepted as "good politics" that the "ins" might 
properly " feather their nests " at the expense of 
the public. Both the civic and the business atmo- 
sphere sadly needed clearing. 

In the year 1856 there arose in Wisconsin a 
cause celehre, an outgrowth of the bitter political 
dissensions of the time, and involving principles of 
the highest importance to the welfare of popular 
government. During the second term of Governor 
Dewey (1850-51), the secretary of state was Wil- 



306 WISCONSIN 

liam A. Barstow, a prominent Democrat from 
Waukesha County. Energetic, almost fiercely ag- 
gressive, of fine physique, possessed of some of the 
qualities of leadership, and cultivating the arts of 
popularity, Barstow had a large and enthusiastic 
factional following. His party being divided on 
issues arising in connection with the fight over the 
first constitution, those not of the Barstow wing 
were intense haters of those who were. Charges of 
corruption were freely laid at his door, and he was 
called hard names in the anti-Barstow newspapers, 
for this was the heyday of " personal journalism " 
in Wisconsin. 

Out of this condition of affairs there was coined 
an expressive phrase that long held in the political 
slang of the commonwealth. State printing con- 
tracts, supposed to be awarded to the lowest bidder, 
were always eagerly sought by rival Madison news- 
paper offices. More or less popular suspicion ex- 
isted, that " deals " were associated with the bien- 
nial letting, which was in the hands of the secretary 
of state, the state treasurer, and the attorney-gen- 
eral, acting as commissioners of public printing. 
During Barstow's secretaryship, such a contest was 
on. Before the opening of bids, a confidential letter 
was made public,^ in which one of the Madison 
publishers, an intimate friend of the administration, 
writing to his absent partner, declared that he had 
made arrangements for insitie knowledge of the 
^ Wisconsin Democrat (Madison), October 5, 1850. 



POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELATIONS 307 

bidding ; adding, " We must get a good bid . . . 
even if we have to buy up Barstow and the hal- 
ance^^ by " balance " obviously meaning the other 
printing commissioners. Whether or not Barstow 
was misjudged by his indiscreet friend is now im- 
material ; but thereafter his following were by the 
jeering opposition derisively known as " Barstow 
and the balance." On retiring from the secretary- 
ship, Barstow still remained the powerful leader 
of his faction, and the storm centre of the politi- 
cal weather map in Wisconsin. 

We have seen that by this time railway compa- 
nies were yearly importuning the legislature for 
charters. Previous to 1853 there had been no indi- 
cation of corruption on the part of railway lobby- 
ists ; but the methods of a group of speculators in- 
terested in the proposed Rock River Valley Union 
enterprise were such as quite generally to scandal- 
ize the state. The lobbyists rented a club-house, 
called by them "Monks' Hall," situated but a 
square distant from the capitol, and here legisla- 
tors were entertained upon what was in those simple 
times thought to be a scale of splendor. This band 
of conspirators were fond of facetiously alluding to 
themselves as " The monks of Monks' Hall," but 
their popular designation was " The Forty Thieves,'* 
another political term long outliving in Wisconsin 
the cause of its original bestowal ; and in this un- 
holy company many considered that "Barstow and 
the balance " were duly enrolled. At this distance, 



308 WISCONSIN 

and taking into account the virulent character of 
the partisanship of the period, it is practically im- 
possible to pass safe judgment upon the foundation 
for these widely-spread accusations. 

In November (1853) Barstow was elected gov- 
ernor, having polled a plurality of 8519 votes, his 
opponents being Edward D. Holton, Republican, 
and Henry S. Baird, Whig. He was bitterly as- 
sailed throughout his term, being charged with 
allowing his official staff to mismanage the school 
funds of the state and make ill-secured loans there- 
from to personal friends. Certainly, he lost ground, 
and when running for reelection in 1855 failed to 
draw his full party strength ; moreover, the new 
Republican party, born in Wisconsin the previous 
year,^ and represented in this election by Coles 
Bashford of Winnebago County, was making great 
gains in popular favor. The vote was so close that 
from the middle of November to the middle of 
December the result was unknown, because of a 
needed recount, and there was much suppressed 
excitement. 

On December 15 the state board of canvassers 

^ It would appear to be established that the first formal meet- 
ing to organize the party was held at Ripon, February 28, 1854. 
At a subsequent meeting in that village, Alvan E. Bovay, a resi- 
dent Whig, suggested the name " Republican." Michigan was the 
first, however, to perfect a state organization, doing so at a meet- 
ing in Jackson, July 6. Wisconsin, which had conceived and named 
the party, held its state convention at Madison a week later (July 
13). See F. A. Flower, History of (he Bepublican Party. 



POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELATIONS 309 

— the same officials who composed the printing 
commission, and all of them Barstow's colleagues 

— announced that Barstow had received 36,355 
votes and Bashford 36,198, a majority for the former 
of 157. Bashford's supporters at once claimed for- 
geries of supplemental county returns and general 
unfairness, and a contest was at once prepared for. 

Barstow took the oath for his second term, on 
January 7, 1856, amid the usual civic and military 
display, and remained in possession of the executive 
chamber. Meanwhile, Bashford was quietly sworn 
in by Chief Justice Whiton, at the chamber of the 
state supreme court, and promptly brought into that 
court an information in the nature of quo ivarranto 
to oust the incumbent governor and establish his 
own claim to the election. This being the first time 
in the history of the United States that a state 
court had been called upon to decide as to whether 
a governor had been properly elected, the case at 
once attracted general attention. 

The court consisted of Chief Justice Whiton and 
Associate Justices Smith and Orsamus Cole. The 
lawyers engaged upon both sides were men of con- 
siderable distinction at the Wisconsin bar: Bash- 
ford's counsel being Timothy O. Howe, Edward G. 
Ryan, James H. Knowlton, and Alexander W. 
Randall, while for Barstow appeared Jonathan E. 
Arnold, Harlow S. Orton, and Matthew H. Car- 
penter. Barstow's counsel questioned the jurisdic- 
tion of the court, claiming that to allow one of the 



310 WISCONSIN 

three coordinate branches of government to decide 
upon the eligibility of another would be to elevate 
the judiciary above the people, thus enabling only 
the creatures of the court to hold office. After a 
fierce contest, lasting several weeks, the court held 
that its jurisdiction was undoubted. Throughout, 
Bashford's cause was handled with great skill, his 
counsel winning on nearly every motion ; until, on 
March 8, Barstow and his representatives indig- 
nantly withdrew from the case, declaring that the 
court was actuated by political prejudices. 

Nevertheless, the court proceeded with its in- 
quiry into the facts, the result of the investigation 
being to establish gross irregularities in the work 
of the board of canvassers. A reexamination of the 
returns developed that Bashford had been elected 
by 1009 plurality, and on March 24 he was declared 
to be the rightful governor. 

Foreseeing the result, Barstow, who all along 
had declared that he would not " give up his 
office alive," had three days before this sent in 
his resignation to the legislature, and the lieu- 
tenant-governor, Arthur McArthur, whose election 
was unquestioned, assumed office as the suppos- 
edly legal successor under the constitution. McAr- 
thur took a stubborn attitude, asserting that he 
would, in the face of all hazards, hold his chair 
throughout the remainder of the term. The court 
ruled, however, that as Barstow's title was worth- 
less, McArthur could not succeed to it, — a view 



POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELATIONS 311 

of the case that apparently the Barstow faction 
had not anticipated, for the announcement threw 
them into much confusion. 

The decision had been rendered on March 24 
(Monday). Bashford announced that on the fol- 
lowing morning he would take possession of the 
governor's office. Particularly in and around Mad- 
ison, popular interest in the trial had developed 
to the stage of intense excitement that promised 
trouble. Bodies of armed men, siding with either 
the relator or the respondent, were drilling in 
anticipation of a desperate conflict. Wordy quar- 
rels were frequent upon the streets, but the parti- 
san managers, who would have been held respons- 
ible for an outbreak, were doing their best to quiet 
the more boisterous of their followers. 

News of Bashford's intent quickly spread. Early 
in the day not only residents, but country peo- 
ple from as far as ten miles out of town, for the 
most part Bashford's adherents, crowded into the 
statehouse, fully expecting a sanguinary fight. At 
eleven, Bashford and a small bodyguard of friends 
proceeded to the rooms of the supreme court and 
obtained the waiting writ, which the Dane County 
sheriff was charged with serving. Sheriff and gov- 
ernor made their way through the throng, which 
encouraged them by friendly cheers, and rapped 
for admittance at the door to the executive cham- 
ber, wherein were McArthur, his private secre- 
tary, and a few friends. 



312 WISCONSIN 

Bashford was a portly, dignified, pleasant-man- 
nered man of the " old school." AVhen bidden to 
enter, he leisurely took off his top-coat, hung it 
and his hat in the official wardrobe, and blandly 
informed the irate McArthur that he had come to 
take charge of the office. The latter demanded 
to know whether force would be used, whereat 
Bashford quietly asserted that " he presumed no 
force would be essential ; but in case any were 
needed, there would be no hesitation whatever, 
with the sheriff's help, in applying it." McArthur 
said that he "considered this threat as constructive 
force," and thereupon promptly left the office with 
his secretary and adherents, passing between rows 
of Bashford's supporters, who now were guarding 
the building throughout. There was a shout of tri- 
umph, and in a few minutes Governor Bashford 
was being congratulated by the crowd. ^ 

The Republican senate received Bashford's open- 
ing message with enthusiasm, and passed a con- 
gratulatory vote ; but the Democratic assembly at 
first refused (thirty-eight to forty-four) to hold 
communication with the new executive. Finally, 
thirty Democratic members withdrew after filing a 
protest, and the assembly then voted (thirty-seven 
to nine) to recognize the governor. The incident 

^ This description of the scenes accompanying- the accession of 
Bashford is the substance of what was, several years ago, related 
to the present writer by the late General David Atwood, editor 
of the Wisconsin State Journal, himself a prominent friend of 
Bashford, and an eye-witness of every phase of the affair. 



POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELATIONS 313 

was of much importance in the history of the state, 
for there is no doubt that for a time the factionists 
were close to the verge of civil war, and grave dan- 
ger threatened the system of government by the 
people. 

Another unfortunate state event created wide- 
spread interest. In January, 1853, Levi Hubbell, 
judge of the second judicial circuit, and one of the 
most prominent men in Wisconsin, was charged 
before the assembly, by a private citizen, with 
" high crimes, misdemeanors, and malfeasances in 
office." A committee of the assembly reported on 
the matter a month later, preferring about fifty 
charges, with accompanying specifications, and re- 
commending the judge's removal from office. The 
accusations included bribery, adjudicating cases in 
which he was interested, inflicting slighter punish- 
ments than required by law, undue partiality, 
arbitrariness, misapplication of funds, immoral 
conduct, allowing himself to be approached and in- 
fluenced out of court on suits pending before him, 
borrowing money from contestants before his court, 
and interfering with suits in other courts. 

The senate sat as a court of impeachment, from 
June 6 to July 11, the sharply-contested trial at- 
tracting large audiences and arousing much fac- 
tional bitterness. The newspapers of the state, 
freely taking sides, and discussing the affair with 
characteristic acrimony, appear to have been about 
equally divided in their sympathies. The contend- 



314 WISCONSIN 

ing lawyers included some of the most distinguished 
members of the Wisconsin bar; but especially 
prominent was Edward G. Ryan, of Milwaukee, 
who headed the assembly's counsel. His closing 
argument for the prosecution was in some respects 
the most acute and brilliant of its kind ever heard 
within the state, and is still studied in some law 
schools as a remarkable example of legal invective. 
The verdict of the senate was "not guilty," a judg- 
ment commented on by press and people according 
to individual predilections. While Hubbell was 
certainly placed in an unpleasant light, and ap- 
pears to have been lacking in judicial manner, 
much of the evidence was of a flimsy character, 
and personal animus seems to have played some 
part in the proceedings. The trial is " an isolated 
episode in Wisconsin history." * 

Allusion was made in a previous chapter to the 
legislative act of January 5, 1838, organizing " at 
or near Madison, the seat of government," the 
" University of the Territory of Wisconsin." It 
had been the custom for Congress to bestow upon 
each new territory seventy-two sections (46,080 
acres) of public lands as a university endowment, 
and Wisconsin received the usual grant. These 
lands were officially selected, but throughout the 
territorial period remained untouched, for no steps 
were then taken to organize the proposed institution. 

^ See J. B. Sanborn, " The Impeachment of Levi Hubbell," in 
Wis. Hist. Soe. Proceedings, 1905. 



POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELATIONS 315 

In fact, but few citizens of the territory were much 
interested in the cause of higher education. To the 
great majority of frontiersmen, engaged in wrest- 
ing a somewhat meagre livelihood from soil, forest, 
lakes, and mines, the proposed university seemed 
an enterprise far removed from the necessities of 
Western life. 

The state constitution provided for "a state 
university, at or near the seat of state govern- 
ment." In July, 1848, it was duly incorporated, 
and appraisers of school and university lands were 
appointed. But at once the question arose. What 
should be the policy of the state, in this endow- 
ment of higher education by the federal govern- 
ment? Immigrants were fast pouring in, and lands 
must inevitably rise in value. Should the trust sec- 
tions be kept until higher prices prevailed, and the 
university of the future thus be assured a worthy 
income ? or, should they be sold at once, on terms 
so low that immigration would be encouraged, and 
the university itself be left to the care of the next 
generation, which doubtless would be quite able to 
support such a school by taxation ? 

Each state carved out of the Old Northwest had 
faced the same problem. Of the five, Michigan 
alone kept faith with the national government. 
Maintaining possession of her lands until 1837, she 
received prices averaging $22.50 per acre, and 
to-day the fund accruing from their sale brings to 
the university a considerable income. Wisconsin 



316 WISCONSIN 

chose to use the federal gift as a bait for immi- 
grants, selling most of the university's acres at 
prices much below ruling market rates, and thus 
seriously crippling the college during the first 
twenty years of its existence. 

In 1848 a second land grant of seventy-two sec- 
tions was made by Congress, but this was not 
available until 1854, the year in which the univer- 
sity graduated its first class of two young men. The 
first grant having been wasted, it might have been 
supposed that the second would be treated with re- 
spect. But in neighborhoods where $10 to f 20 an 
acre was the customary price, the new university 
lands, despite the indignant protests of the board 
of regents, were offered for three dollars, the sev- 
enty-two sections thus bringing but f 138,240. 

To make a bad matter worse, the fund produced 
by the sale of both land grants was recklessly in- 
vested. Upon the plea of assisting settlers, the 
state land commissioners — again the secretary of 
state, the state treasurer, and the attorney-general 
— made loans from all of the educational funds to 
thousands of individuals, largely political friends 
of those officers, and many of these quite irrespons- 
ible, and it is still unknown how great was the 
loss. In 1861 there was an investigation of the 
wretched business by the land commissioners then 
in office, and an exposure was made in their annual 
report : " Truth compels the confession that this 
trust has been, and is now, of necessity, most un- 



POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELATIONS 317 

faithfully administered. The best of the school 
lands have been disposed of with eager haste and 
in disregard of the interest of the funds for which 
they were dedicated." 

Thus the state university started upon its career 
in a condition of extreme weakness. Sadly ham- 
pered for funds and obliged to erect buildings from 
the wasted endowment given by Congress solely 
for support and maintenance, its early manage- 
ment was not popular and was beset by numer- 
ous enemies in the legislature. A drastic reorgan- 
ization occurred in 1858, and under improved 
business management public confidence was gradu- 
ally restored. Not until 1872, however, was a 
state tax levied for the benefit of the university — 
and then in distinct official recognition of the fact 
that the institution had suffered " serious loss and 
impairment by such sales of its lands, so that its 
income is not at present sufficient to supply its 
wants." ^ Since then, the University of Wisconsin 
has received generous aid from each recurring leg- 
islature, which has in this manner paid the debt 
imposed upon the state by the errors of its prede- 
cessors of a half century ago.^ 

In February, 1849, the Wisconsin legislature 
requested the state's representatives in Congress 
" to oppose the passage of any act for the govern- 
ment of New Mexico and California, or any other 

^ Preamble to chapter 100, Laws of Wisconsin for 1872. 
^ See Thwaites, History of the University of Wisconsin. 



318 WISCONSIN 

Territory now belonging to the United States, or 
which may be hereafter acquired, unless it shall 
contain a provision forever prohibiting the intro- 
duction of slavery or involuntary servitude into 
said territories, except as a punishment for crime." 
Later, a bill to organize the territories of New 
Mexico and California, with this so-called " Wil- 
mot proviso," was passed by the House of Repre- 
sentatives, but defeated by the Senate ; upon the 
last night of the session, however, the latter attached 
to the general appropriation bill a " rider " erecting 
these territories without the anti-slavery clause. 
Isaac P. Walker, one of the Wisconsin senators, 
took part in this questionable proceeding, which 
was, however, opposed by his colleague, Henry 
Dodge. The state legislature thereupon passed re- 
solutions approving Dodge's course, but calling on 
Walker to resign his seat, he having " outraged the 
feelings and misrepresented those who elected him 
to that station, and openly violated the instructions " 
of the legislature. Walker made no answer, and 
kept his seat, but thereafter cautiously voted upon 
the anti-slavery side. 

On September 18, 1850, the President approved 
the federal Fugitive Slave Law, which provided for 
using the machinery of the United States courts in 
apprehending runaway slaves and returning them 
to their masters. This act — which denied to the 
bondman a trial by jury, the writ of habeas corpus^ 
the right of appeal, and the summoning of wit- 



POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELATIONS 319 

nesses in his own behalf — met with general con- 
demnation in the free states. Various political 
conventions in Wisconsin denounced it as " odious 
and offensive," and adopted resolutions refusing 
aid in carrying out its provisions. But this state 
was not on the usual route between the South and 
Canada, so that few slaves were transported across 
its borders by the " underground railroad," al- 
though that widely-ramified institution did not 
lack agents in Wisconsin, who courted a larger 
traffic of this character. There was, therefore, in- 
frequent opportunity here for a clash over the 
matter between federal and state authorities ; but 
when a fugitive slave case did arise, the conflict 
attracted national attention, and again aroused the 
strong state-rights sentiment which appears to have 
existed in Wisconsin in ante helliiin days. 

Joshua Glover, a runaway negro slave, was in 
the winter of 1853-54 employed in a sawmill some 
four miles north of Racine, on the high road to 
Milwaukee. Just before dusk on the night of March 
10 he was in his house, playing cards with two 
other negroes. Their game was suddenly inter- 
rupted by the entrance of seven heavily-armed 
white men, who had driven thither from Racine. 
Two of the intruders were federal deputy marshals, 
who had with them four assistants, the seventh 
trespasser being Benammi W. Garland of St. Louis, 
who claimed to be Glover's master. In the attempt 
to arrest Glover a desperate fight ensued, in the 



320 WISCONSIN 

course of which his negro friends escaped ; but 
single-handed he displayed great strength, and was 
only overcome by being knocked on the head and 
manacled while insensible. 

The kidnappers had intended returning to Ra- 
cine ; but realizing that news of the encounter 
would soon reach that hotbed of abolitionism, they 
feared a rough reception, so determined to drive 
across country to Milwaukee, twenty miles north- 
ward. The night was bitterly cold, but the bleeding 
fugitive was thrown into an open wagon, without 
covering, and throughout the night-long ride was 
frequently kicked and clubbed, and threatened by 
the brutal Garland with still worse punishment 
when he reached " home." At daylight, the poor 
black was cast into the Milwaukee jail, where his 
wounds were bandaged by a physician. 

The anti-slavery leaders of Milwaukee were at 
once aroused. One of the most prominent among 
them was Sherman M. Booth, editor of a small 
paper called "Wisconsin Free Democrat." Learn- 
ing of the Glover affair, Booth, during the morning 
of the eleventh, rode on horseback up and down 
the streets of the city, and like a town crier shouted : 
" Freemen, to the rescue ! Slave-catchers are in our 
midst ! Be at the courthouse at two o'clock ! " At 
the appointed time, five thousand citizens gathered 
in the courthouse square, where men of local prom- 
inence made impassioned speeches against the fugi- 
tive slave law and negro-kidnapping. 



POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELATIONS 321 

The Milwaukee county judge issued a writ of 
habeas corpus in favor of Glover ; but the sheriff, 
advised by Federal Judge A. G. Miller, who had 
issued the warrant for the slave's arrest, refused to 
serve the paper. Excitement grew hourly. At five 
o'clock a contingent of a hundred persons arrived 
by steamboat from Racine, where a large mass 
meeting had been held that morning, at which it 
was resolved that " We, as citizens of Wisconsin, 
are justified in declaring and do hereby declare the 
slave-catching law of 1850 disgraceful and also re- 
pealed." The delegation of a hundred were sent 
to Milwaukee to insist on fair play for the negro. 
In the course of the afternoon the Milwaukee local 
militia were ordered out to preserve the peace, but 
failed to obey the summons. 

At six o'clock, following a glowing appeal by 
Booth, the mob demanded that the sheriff give up 
his prisoner. Refusal following, the jail door was 
battered in with a ram of timber. Glover was then 
taken out and handed over to the "underground 
railroad" agency, which put him aboard a schooner 
clearing for Canada, where he arrived safely. As 
for Garland and the deputies, they were arrested 
for assault, but Judge Miller released them. 

Soon after this event, a number of anti-slavery 
meetings were held in various free states, to take 
action against the Nebraska bill. At gatherings of 
this character it became customary to adopt a reso- 
lution clearly indorsing the affair at Milwaukee ; 



322 WISCONSIN 

in Wisconsin, a resolution was generally added, ex- 
pressing the opinion that the obnoxious federal law 
was unconstitutional. As for the Wisconsin press, 
it generally sympathized with the movement, al- 
though there was in most editorials a cautious note 
of deprecation against the use of mob violence, save 
under great provocation. 

Public interest now centred in Booth, who be- 
came the victim of a long and expensive series of 
legal actions as the principal inciter of violence 
against the federal authority. Four days after 
Glover's jail delivery. Booth was arrested on a war- 
rant from the United States commissioner, charging 
him with "aiding and abetting" in the former's es- 
cape ; but the state supreme court discharged him 
(July 19) on a writ of habeas corpus. In his opin- 
ion on the case. Associate Justice A. D. Smith held 
that Congress had no power, under the federal 
constitution, to legislate on the subject of persons 
held to labor or service, that being a state function ; 
he also denied that the federal judiciary was " the 
sole and exclusive judge of its own powers," and 
advised the general government to " abstain from 
interference " with state affairs. The full bench, in 
supporting this opinion, held further that the fugi- 
tive slave law was " unconstitutional and void." 

Booth was promptly reindicted by the federal 
authorities, and haled before the United States 
District Court, which in January (1855) condemned 
him to a month's imprisonment and a fine of a 



POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELATIONS 323 

thousand dollars. Public meetings were now held 
throughout the state, at which money was raised 
for continuing the defense of the popular agitator, 
who was himself a man of indomitable courage 
and perseverance. Some of the fervid resolutions 
adopted at these gatherings remind one of Wis- 
consin Territory's nullification address to Congress, 
ten years previous. 

As soon as practicable, the case of Booth was, 
amidst great popular excitement, again presented 
to the state court, which once more issued the 
habeas corpus writ, this time accompanied by a de- 
cision from Chief Justice Edward V. Whiton, dis- 
tinctly declaring the Fugitive Slave Law " uncon- 
stitutional and void." Mr. Justice Smith filed a 
still stronger individual opinion, reiterating his for- 
mer contentions. These decisions were cheered to 
the echo throughout Wisconsin and other Northern 
states. Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, writing 
to a Wisconsin correspondent under date of Wash- 
ington, June 18, 1856, says : " I have read Judge 
Smith's opinions. He has placed the lovers of con- 
stitutional freedom under renewed obligations. . . . 
Judge Smith's opinion showed the true metal." 

The United States Supreme Court, as might be 
expected, in 1859 reversed the action of the state 
court, which was ordered to return Booth into 
federal custody. This, however, the state refused 
to do, and Booth was rearrested on federal war- 
rant, March 1, 1860. Again was the aid of the 



324 WISCONSIN 

state supreme court invoked, but meanwhile there 
had been changes in the composition of that body, 
and the application for a new writ failed.^ The 
prisoner escaped from confinement, on the first of 
August, and fled to the northern part of the state ; 
but being rearrested at Berlin, October 8, he re- 
mained in confinement until pardoned by President 
Buchanan just previous to Lincoln's inauguration. 
In 1857, as the result of this protracted disturb- 
ance, the legislature passed an act " to prevent kid- 
napping." District attorneys in each county were 
instructed " to use all lawful means to protect, de- 
fend, and procure to be discharged . . . every per- 
son arrested or claimed as a fugitive slave," and 
to throw around the bondsman every possible safe- 
guard. Two years later the spring election of 1859 
for justice of the state supreme court turned on 
this issue. Byron Paine, Booth's principal counsel, 
ran upon an anti-slavery platform, which also in- 
volved state-rights, for in his argument in behalf 
of Booth, Paine had quoted the Virginia and Ken- 
tucky nullification resolutions, and boldly declared : 
"The states should have the right to judge, in the 
last resort, when their sovereignties are encroached 
upon, and to take measures for their protection." 
After an exciting campaign, in which " state- 

^ Chief Justice Dixon held the Fugitive Slave Law constitu- 
tional and valid ; Associate Justices Orsamus Cole and Byron 
Paine were of the contrary opinion, — but as Paine had been of 
Booth's counsel, he declined to act, which left the vote a tie. 



POLITICS AND NATIONAL RELATIONS 325 

rights" was the slogan of Paine's managers, he 
won by about two thousand majority in a total 
vote of seventy-nine thousand. Writing from Rome 
in May, Sumner fervidly congratulated Paine, in 
his ecstasy crying, " God bless the people of Wis- 
consin who know their rights and knowing dare 
maintain ! " ^ 

Thus the growing insolence of the slave power 
at last introduced a distinctly moral issue into 
public discussion, and swiftly brought about the 
desirable readjustment of parties upon great na- 
tional issues. Thereafter was noticeable in this, as 
in other Western states, a marked improvement in 
the quality of public service, and in every walk 
of life a loftier standard has since been adhered 
to. The scandals of fifty years ago have never 
been repeated in the history of Wisconsin, whose 
public affairs are in our day conducted on a plane 
immeasurably higher than in the period treated in 
this chapter. 

^ Vroman Mason, " The Fugitive Slave Law in Wisconsin, with 
reference to Nullification Sentiment," in Wis. Hist. Soc. Proceed- 
ings, 1895. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE WAR CLOUD 

In 1860 Wisconsin contained a population of 
somewhat over three quarters of a million, a gain 
of three hundred fold in twelve years. In his mes- 
sage to the legislature, delivered January 12, Gov- 
ernor Alexander W. Randall, then entering upon 
his second term, called attention to the fact that 
the finances of the fast-growing young common- 
wealth were never in so excellent a condition : 
" The difficulties and embarrassments under which 
the state has labored for some years have been out- 
grown. . . . Wisconsin has paid for her public im- 
provements, such as the erection of prisons and 
charitable institutions, without creating a perma- 
nent state debt for such purposes." There was not 
even a floating debt, and a satisfactory balance 
remained in the treasury. The business of the state 
was being conducted, he declared, at less expense 
and with lower taxes than that of " any other 
Northern state out of New England, with a single 
exception." Among the evidences of a healthful 
condition was the existence of 4331 school dis- 
tricts, and schoolhouse property valued at $1,185,- 
181. 



THE WAR CLOUD 327 

But there was a cloud in this otherwise promis- 
ing sky. The insurrectionary aims of the slave- 
holders were becoming more and more evident, and 
the governor discussed them with a due sense of 
the gravity of the situation. Quite ignoring the 
nullification sentiments but recently applauded 
within his own state, on the occasion of the bound- 
ary and the Glover affairs, his message clearly 
placed Wisconsin on record as now a stanch and 
unquestioned supporter of the federal authority. 
" The disunion sentiments avowed in portions of 
the country, and sometimes in our halls of na- 
tional legislation, are," the chief executive de- 
clared, " unpatriotic, undignified, and disgraceful. 
Every threat of disunion should be held up to 
public reprobation in all sections of the Union, and 
every attempt at disunion rewarded with a halter. 
... If any state forgets its allegiance, it must be 
brought back." 

Language such as this might not have been 
favorably received, anywhere between 1854 and 
1859, at public meetings in Wisconsin called to 
support Booth. But here, as elsewhere in the North, 
stress of events had caused a sudden revulsion of 
popular sentiment in regard to federal loyalty. 
Now that a crisis was imminent, but few citizens 
of Wisconsin found themselves opposed to the 
attitude of the entire state administration — not 
only were all of the governor's colleagues (the 
department chiefs) of his own party and way of 



328 WISCONSIN 

thinking, but the legislative majority was also of 
the same opinion. 

In Congress, Senator James R. Doolittle of Wis- 
consin made (December 27) a learned and con- 
vincing speech against secession, which attracted 
the attention of the country. He pointed out to his 
Southern colleagues that : " Your right of seces- 
sion involves the right of expulsion ; " and plainly 
told them that, instead of injustice, "you have had 
your full share, and more than your full share, of 
the territories we have acquired from the begin- 
ning up to this hour. . . . We deny you no right 
which we do not deny ourselves." Senators Doo- 
little and Timothy O. Howe, serving Wisconsin as 
such throughout the war, were men of commanding 
importance in those stirring days. Howe's maiden 
speech in the Senate (March 22, 1861), attacking 
the secessionists, was eagerly read at the time, par- 
ticularly for its skillful passage-at-arms with Ste- 
phen A. Douglas and others of his opponents. 

Of the Wisconsin members of the House of 
Representatives throughout the war period, the 
most conspicuous were Amasa Cobb, Charles A. 
Eldridge, Charles H. Larrabee, John F. Potter, 
A. Scott Sloan, Ithamar C. Sloan, and Cadwalla- 
der C. Washburn. Potter, a bluff, outspoken man 
of considerable ability, was, during the early days 
of secession talk (1860), challenged to fight a duel 
with Congressman Roger A. Pryor, a Virginian 
somewhat inclined to "fire-eating." Under the 



THE WAR CLOUD 329 

" code of honor," Potter as the challenged party 
had the privilege of choosing weapons for the con- 
test, and in a spirit of grim humor selected a pair 
of particularly vicious-looking bowie-knives ; where- 
upon Pryor indignantly withdrew, declaring that 
he was not a butcher. In the superheated political 
atmosphere of the time, this otherwise amusing in- 
cident became at once a national event. " Bowie- 
Knife Potter" was the hero of the hour among the 
most violent of the anti-Southern element ; and to 
his dismay, poor Pryor, on whose shoulders were 
placed all the supposed iniquities of the South, 
found himself posted above Mason and Dixon's 
line as "a typical Dixie coward."^ 

The result of the presidential election in Novem- 
ber following was practically an announcement to 
the South, on the part of the North, that the slave 
power was doomed. Wisconsin made a distinct 
contribution to this verdict, for out of 152,180 votes 
cast in this state, the Republican presidential elec- 
tors received a plurality of 21,089 over the Dem- 
ocratic candidates. 

The threatened Southern revolt was not long 
delayed. December 20, the South Carolina conven- 
tion unanimously passed an ordinance dissolving 
the union between its own and the other states ; in 
this being followed by Mississipj)i (January 9, 

^ Potter's bowie-knives, tog-ether with several others presented 
to him by admiring Northern friends, are now in the museum of 
the Wisconsin Historical Society, at Madison. 



330 WISCONSIN 

1861), Florida (January 10), Alabama (January 
11), Georgia (January 18), Louisiana (January 
26), and Texas (February 1). Upon tbe day of 
Florida's secession. Governor Randall again ad- 
dressed the Wisconsin legislature at length upon 
the national situation. " The right of a state to se- 
cede from the Union," he declared, " can never be 
admitted. ... A state cannot come into the Union 
as it pleases, and go out when it pleases. Once in, 
it must stay until the Union is destroyed. . . . 
Secession is revolution ; revolution is war ; war 
against the government of the United States is trea- 
son." His closing paragraph was stilted, but typi- 
cal of much of the political oratory of that day : 
*' Wisconsin is true, and her people steadfast. She 
will not destroy the Union, nor consent that it shall 
be done. Devised by great, and wise, and good 
men, in days of sore trial, it must stand. Like some 
bold mountain, at whose base the great seas break 
their angry floods, and around whose summit a 
thousand hurricanes have rattled, strong, unmoved, 
immovable — so may our Union be, while treason 
surges at its base, and passions rage around it, 
unmoved, immovable — here let it stand forever." 
The state legislature was overwhelmingly Re- 
publican, but party lines were no longer drawn ; 
all united in support of the Union. Affairs moved 
swiftly in the South. February 18, General David 
E. Twiggs, commandant of the Military Depart- 
ment of Texas, then including the largest body of 



THE WAR CLOUD 331 

federal regulars, surrendered to the agents of the 
Confederacy a million and a quarter dollars' worth 
of government property in his care at San Antonio ; 
together with nineteen posts, navy yards, arsenals, 
and a vast quantity of military stores in various 
parts of the state ; while the 2700 men in his charge 
were ordered to depart from the commonwealth, be- 
ing for the purpose given transportation and food 
to the coast. For this service the Texas convention 
voted, " That the thanks of the people of Texas are 
due and are hereby tendered to Maj.-Gen. David 
E. Twiggs for his patriotism, moral courage, and 
loyalty to the Constitution of the United States, 
embracing the rights and liberty of his native 
South." 

Wisconsin pioneers were particularly interested 
in this incident, because, as major of the Fifth 
United States Infantry, Twiggs had served for 
several years as commandant of Forts Howard 
and Winnebago, respectively, and had been a 
prominent character in our pre-territorial history. 
One of his lieutenants at the latter post was Jeffer- 
son Davis, then a young graduate from West Point, 
and now provisional President of the Confederate 
States. 

The retirement of President Buchanan, who had 
allowed the revolt to gather head, and the inaugu- 
ration of Lincoln, pledged to preserve the Union, 
meant henceforth a vigorous policy both at Wash- 
ington and at the several state capitals. On the 



332 WISCONSIN 

13th of April, anticipating a call from President 
Lincoln for volunteers, the Wisconsin legislature 
passed an act giving to Randall practically carte 
hlanche in the adoption of such measures " To pro- 
vide for the defense of the state, and to aid in en- 
forcing the laws and maintaining the authority of 
the federal government," as to him should seem 
appropriate. For this purpose, a hundred thousand 
dollars were voted. But on the 14th (Sunday) 
came news of the surrender of Fort Sumter in 
Charleston harbor. On Monday the President called 
for seventy-five thousand three-months' volunteers 
to aid in executing federal laws in the seceding 
states. The next day the Wisconsin governor is- 
sued a proclamation urging prompt response on the 
part of the people of the state, especially by uni- 
formed militia companies, and at a later hour the 
same day the legislature doubled the sum pre- 
viously appropriated for use in the great emergency. 

On Wednesday noon, according to a previously 
adopted resolution, the legislature adjourned sine 
die, but the members at once resolved themselves 
into a public meeting, held in the chamber of the 
assembly. This gathering was addressed by mem- 
bers, lobbyists, and citizens generally, Democrats 
as well as Republicans, the proceedings being 
marked by intense enthusiasm and unstinted ex- 
pressions of loyalty. 

The heroes of the occasion were the men of the 
Madison Guard, a local militia company that had 



THE WAR CLOUD 333 

unanimously tendered its services to Randall as 
early as January 9, the day of Mississippi's seces- 
sion. Immediately upon signing his proclamation of 
April 16, the governor sent for the captain of this 
company and accepted the tender. Thus this organ- 
ization was the first in Wisconsin to enlist. While 
its members were being cheered at the meeting 
in the assembly chamber, the telegraph brought 
similar offers from Milwaukee and other cities 
throughout the state, as well as news that Virginia 
had that day taken steps to withdraw from the 
Union. 

Within a week Governor Randall had on his 
hands an embarrassment of riches ; for while Wis- 
consin's assigned quota was but one regiment, 
thirty-six companies had volunteered. *' In six days 
from the issue of my proclamation of the 16th," the 
governor officially announced, " the first regiment 
called for by the President of the United States, 
for the defence of the Union, is enrolled and ready. 
... It is to be regretted that Wisconsin is not 
permitted to increase largely her quota, but her 
loyal citizens must exercise patience till called for." 
Of the ten companies accepted, four were from 
Milwaukee, two from Madison, and one each from 
Beloit, Fond du Lac, Horicon, and Kenosha. 

On the 18th and 19th of April, Northern troops 
passing through Baltimore on their way to Wash- 
ington were attacked by mobs, which on the latter 
day drew the first blood that was shed in behalf 



334 WISCONSIN 

of the Union. The First Wisconsin infantry regi- 
ment, recruited up to standard and thoroughly or- 
ganized, was tendered to the War Department on 
the twenty-second. Going into camp at Milwaukee 
five days later, the men were on the 17th of May 
mustered into the United States service for three 
months. On June 7, the regiment received march- 
ing orders, and two days later left for the capital 
of Pennsylvania. Its progress eastward elicited 
warm greetings. Contemporary newspaper reports 
spoke of their "comparatively perfect equipment," 
and their " splendid appearance." A New York 
" Tribune " correspondent prophesied that " The 
clarion voice of their martial-looking Colonel [John 
C] Starkweather, will ring the knell of the traitors 
who get within rifle distance." 

Despite the amiable compliments of ill-informed 
newspaper correspondents on the martial appear- 
ance of the First Wisconsin, it must be confessed 
that, in common with other Northern militia regi- 
ments now hurrying to the front, our representa- 
tives were soon to discover that they were but ill 
provided for the stern necessities of camp and field. 
The War of Secession found the people of the 
North quite unprepared. Few of its military organ- 
izations were worthy of the name. Wisconsin's 
militia system, probably as good as that of its 
neighbors, was weak and ineffective ; the most im- 
portant public service rendered by the fancifully 
uniformed and sometimes artistically drilled com- 



THE WAR CLOUD 335 

panies had heretofore been to parade on public 
holidays and at gubernatorial inaugurations. The 
officers knew nothing of the conditions of actual 
service. There was abundant patriotism, and at 
first no lack of either men or money, but in Wis- 
consin as elsewhere confusion reigned ; people in 
authority worked at cross purposes ; only inade- 
quate supplies of military stores could be obtained, 
and generally these were ill adapted to the purpose 
designed, 'and managed by an untrained commis- 
sariat. 

Governor Randall developed a quite unusual 
capacity for hard and efficient work. He sent 
agents to Washington to collect expert informa- 
tion as to the handling, outfitting, and general care 
of troops, so far as military men then understood 
that branch of their work ; but in these matters 
none were then really proficient, as judged by the 
standards of our own time. In the first week of 
May he was a prominent member of a conference 
of governors of Western and Border states held at 
Cleveland, and was selected to lay the results of 
this convention before the President ; he organized 
the women of the state in their important task of 
cooperation with the army, a helpfulness which 
soon assumed large proportions ; conducted a wide 
correspondence with the national authorities and 
his fellow state executives ; addressed patriotic 
meetings ; and in general supervised in person even 
the minutest details of management. But do what 



336 WISCONSIN 

he miglit, — and under like circumstances no man 
could have effected larger results, — Wisconsin 
troops had their full share of such trials as in 
those early months arose from insufficient and im- 
proper food, clothing, and equipment, and wretch- 
edly unwholesome camps. 

The governor complained to the War Department 
because Illinois, with not quite double the popula- 
tion of Wisconsin, had been called on for six regi- 
ments while his own state was restricted to one. 
Secretary of War Cameron, reflecting the opinion 
of the federal cabinet, that had not yet risen to an 
appreciation of the magnitude of the task before it, 
replied that one regiment was all that could be 
used, and suggested canceling all enlistments be- 
yond the required number. Randall, however, 
thought that he knew better, and began forming 
regiments of reserves, which, he declared, would 
soon be needed. In this manner the Second, Third, 
and Fourth Infantry were organized and made ready 
for camp before the authorities at Washington had 
expressed any desire for them. 

While the Cleveland conference was in session. 
President Lincoln issued his second call for troops 
— this time asking for forty-two thousand for three 
years. Wisconsin's quota under this levy was two 
additional regiments. Randall dispatched the Sec- 
ond and Third, and again begged the privilege 
of adding others, only to have his offer once more 
declined. 



THE WAR CLOUD 337 

However, he had not long to wait. On the 4th of 
July the President was authorized to call for five 
hundred thousand men. By November, sixteen 
Wisconsin infantry regiments had been organized, 
and were being drilled at central camps in Madi- 
son,^ Milwaukee, Fond du Lac, and Racine ; and 
the early three-months' commands, now veterans of 
several engagements, had reenlisted for long peri- 
ods. Besides these, the state had put into the field 
two cavalry regiments, seven batteries of artillery, 
and a company of sharpshooters. The quota of 
Wisconsin had thus far been placed at twenty 
thousand, but she had exceeded this by three thou- 
sand. 

The legislature, meeting in special session from 
May 15 to 27 (1861), took vigorous measures for 
promoting Wisconsin's part in the war. The ex- 
pense entailed was startlingly large for so small 
and new a state ; but rigid economy was forced 
upon every department of the public service, in 
order that the one great end might be served. 
Thenceforward Wisconsin promptly and efficiently 
met every demand made upon her during the gigan- 
tic struggle ; her quota of troops was always more 

* Camp Randall, at Madison, then the fair grounds of the Wis- 
consin State Agricultural Society, was the principal training field. 
Of the 91,379 troops contributed by Wisconsin to the war, 70,000 
•were at various times quartered in or drilled at this camp. In 1893 
the ground was purchased by the state as an athletic field for the 
University of Wisconsin, with a view to securing its proper main- 
tenance as an historical site. 



338 WISCONSIN 

*than full ; and although at times the fiscal situation 
seemed desperate, no question arose as to the wis- 
dom of making liberal provision for the military 
chest. 

Never was the financial outlook in our state more 
foreboding than at the outset of the struggle. We 
have seen that during the fifties " wildcat " banks 
were prevalent in the West. Many of these insti- 
tutions had fallen in the crisis of 1857, and there 
was still a shortage of commercial capital in Wis- 
consin. The one hundred and nine state banks 
within the limits of the commonwealth, in the spring 
of 1861, had a circulation of four and a half million 
dollars, two thirds of which was secured by the 
bonds of Southern and Border states, now sadly de- 
preciated. Consequently, business paralysis seemed 
imminent. 

Within a fortnight after the fall of Fort Sumter, 
thirty-eight weak banks suspended payment on their 
bills (aggregating somewhat over two millions of 
dollars), leaving only seventy-one on the list. On 
Friday, June 21, the Milwaukee bankers, seeking 
to save something from the wreck, threw out ten 
other tottering concerns. This action was, however, 
not published until after banking hours on Satur- 
day, the general pay-day for workmen. When the 
latter discovered that many of the bills handed to 
them as wages on Saturday were now discredited, 
they considered this action of the financiers as fraud- 
ulent, and on Monday stormed banks and brokers' 



THE WAR CLOUD 339 

offices witb bricks and paving stones, causing a 
total loss in furniture and windows of about forty 
thousand dollars. During an entire week business 
was suspended at the metropolis, and for a month 
much disorganized. Before the close of the year the 
state made an arrangement with the bankers by 
which the Southern bonds were sold at a sacrifice 
and replaced by state securities ; all bank paper 
not already retired was again received at par ; and 
the holders of the bills of discredited banks were 
compensated for whatever loss they had sustained. 

Nevertheless, public confidence was not wholly 
restored until after the great Union victories in 
1863, that practically decided the result of the war. 
Until then, the volume of business in the state, and 
correspondingly its general wealth, had noticeably 
declined from the standards of 1860.^ 

It has been shown that immigration from Europe 
was the chief cause of Wisconsin's rapid growth 
during the twelve or thirteen years just previous to 
the war. Had it not been for this tragic event, the 
population of the state would doubtless have been 
still more markedly German in its origin. Condi- 
tions in Germany were such, in the early years of 
our contest, as greatly to increase the tendency to- 
wards emigration. But the war and the correspond- 
ing financial depression in the United States at 
once largely diverted the general tide of Europeans 

^ Carl Russell Fish, ' ' Phases of Economic History of Wiscon- 
sin, 1860-70," in Wis. Hist. See. Proceedings, 1907. 



340 WISCONSIN 

towards South America, and in consequence the 
German migration to Wisconsin particularly suf- 
fered. On the other hand, Norwegian immigration 
hither increased materially during this period of 
stress, and in several counties large groups of Nor- 
wegians now supplanted Germans in the ownership 
of the soil. There was throughout the war a con- 
siderable movement toward this and other Middle 
Western states of farmers from New York and 
New England ; but meanwhile many restless Wis- 
consin people were moving to still newer states in 
the farther West. The net result was, that from 
1860 to 1865 the total growth of population of the 
commonwealth was but twelve per cent ; whereas 
the census of 1870 revealed that during the suc- 
ceeding five years of peace, with European immi- 
gration revived upon a large scale, there was an 
increase of twenty-one per cent. 

The fact that Wisconsin contained large and 
varied groups of settlers of European birth gave a 
certain picturesqueness to her troops at the front. 
The Ninth, Twenty-sixth, and Forty-fifth infantry 
regiments were almost wholly German ; the Can- 
adian French were largely represented in the 
Twelfth ; the Fifteenth was distinctly Scandi- 
navian (chiefly Norwegian) ; the Irish were strongly 
centred in the Seventeenth ; while our Indian 
wards, now eager to serve the once-hated " Bos- 
tonnais," were enrolled in considerable numbers in 
the Third, Seventh, and Thirty-seventh. It was 



THE WAR CLOUD 341 

noticeable that European immigrants, inheriting a 
martial spirit, made unusually effective soldiers, 
and won laurels on many hard-fought fields. 

Indeed, most Wisconsin volunteer commands 
were fortunate in earning and maintaining excel- 
lent reputations during the great war. One cause 
for this was the recruiting policy of the state, which 
differed materially from that of many other com- 
monwealths. Says General Sherman in his " Me- 
moirs:" "I remember that Wisconsin kept her 
regiments filled with recruits, whereas other States 
generally filled up their quota by new regiments ; 
and the result was that we estimated a Wisconsin 
regiment equal to an ordinary brigade." They were, 
also, participants in most of the great operations 
in all parts of the theatre of war. This resulted 
from the wise practice of the federal authorities in 
making up brigades and divisions from regiments 
representing widely-separated states, thus breaking 
down the sectional spirit which up to that period 
had been a serious hindrance to the growth of na- 
tionalism. Wisconsin regiments served in each of 
the great armies, and fought in every Southern 
state save Florida ; many patrolled the Rio Grande 
during the threatened invasion from Mexico ; and 
others were engaged in quelling Indian uprisings 
in the trans-Mississippi. 



CHAPTER XVI 

NEWS FROM THE FRONT 

News from the front soon came to have grave 
significance for the people of Wisconsin. On July 
2, 1861, her First Regiment of infantry, a part of 
Abercrombie's brigade and employed in a vain at- 
tempt to prevent Johnston from reinforcing Beau- 
regard at Bull Run, was engaged in a skirmish 
at Falling Waters. In this engagement George 
Drake, a Milwaukee private, was killed, he being 
not only Wisconsin's first sacrifice to the Union, 
but the first soldier to fall in the Shenandoah Val- 
ley, which so soon was to be drenched with American 
blood. 

At the first battle of Bull Run (July 21), the 
Second Wisconsin was conspicuous in the contest 
for Henry Hill, and therein lost over a seventh 
of its numbers in killed and wounded. Sherman 
praised the command for steadiness and nerve, 
qualities afterwards winning for it a wide reputa- 
tion. This organization stands first in the list of 
regimental losses in the Union army ; of its total 
enrollment of 1203, no less than 238, or 19.7 per 
cent, were killed or died of wounds throughout the 
long contest, " which indicates the extreme limit 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 343 

of danger to which human life is exposed in a war 
similar in duration and activity." ^ Nearly 900 
members of this regiment, in all, were either killed 
or wounded, leaving but few of the actual fighting 
strength unharmed — for it must be remembered 
that the term "total enrollment" includes many 
non-combatants, such as musicians, teamsters, hospi- 
tal staff, quartermaster's men, detailed men, sick, 
and absentees of various sorts, besides cooks and 
servants. 

The Seventh Wisconsin stands third in the 
maximum tables of losses in killed and mortally 
wounded, and together with the Twenty-sixth is 
fifth in the percentage table, their death losses 
being alike 17.2 per cent of their total. The 
Thirty-sixth lost 15.4 per cent, and has the six- 
teenth place in the percentage roll of honor. In 
the maximum table the Sixth Wisconsin has tenth 
place, and the ill-fated Second the thirteenth. 

The Third Regiment was at Frederick, Mary- 
land, in September (1861), being sent thither to 
capture the so-called " bogus " legislature assem- 
bled for the purpose of voting that state out of the 
Union. This task the Wisconsin men accomplished, 
keeping the Maryland legislators under guard 
until the latter consented to abandon their intent. 

By the close of his term. Governor Randall had 
made a brilliant record. Admirably organizing the 
fighting machinery of the commonwealth, he had 
^ W. F. Fox, Regimental Losses in the American Civil War,^. 9. 



344 WISCONSIN 

placed Wisconsin troops upon as good a footing as 
those of any of the older and wealthier states. His 
constituents would have been glad to elect him for 
a third term, but he preferred to follow the Ameri- 
can custom in this regard, and declined to be a 
candidate. 

Louis P. Harvey, his successor, who took office 
January 6, 1862, was a man of ability and power ; 
yet his task lay in continuing the work along lines 
laid down by Randall, for he was destined to re- 
main at the helm but a brief period. At the battle 
of Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee (April 4), some 
of the Wisconsin regiments had received severe 
handling by the enemy, and there was much suffer- 
ing among the wounded. The Sanitary Commis- 
sion — formed in 1861 for nationalizing the sani- 
tary interests of the several Union armies, and dis- 
tributing clothing, medicines, sanitary supplies, and 
delicacies among camps and hospitals — was not 
as yet properly organized, and it became necessary 
for Wisconsin to look after her own men. The 
governor, heading a relief party, set out immedi- 
ately for Mound City, Paducah, and Savannah, 
and was returning home when the steamboat bear- 
ing him collided with another in the Tennessee 
River (April 19), and he lost his life by drowning. 

His widow, a woman of noble impulses and un- 
usual ability, entered the ranks of the Sanitary 
Commission as visitor and hospital nurse. She 
soon won deserved prominence in that highly effi- 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 345 

cient organization, through which the energetic 
women of the North proved a valuable adjunct to 
the Union armies. Her advice and encouragement, 
the fruit of long and arduous hospital service at 
the front, were among the strongest assets of the 
Commission's auxiliary in this state, the Wiscon- 
sin Soldiers' Aid Society, with its two hundred 
and twenty-nine branches. ^ As a ministering angel, 
particularly among the " boys " of her own state, 
Mrs. Harvey's career is still cherished by them as 
a sacred memory. It was owing chiefly to her un- 
tiring intercession with President Lincoln that the 
federal authorities somewhat reluctantly consented 
to establish soldiers' hospitals in the more health- 
ful North. ^ Three such were opened in Wisconsin 

^ There -was also a Central Freedmen's Aid Society in Wiscon- 
sin, -with many branches. This sought to aid the refugee blacks 
who had settled in the state, and to encourage them to enlist in 
the army. 

The United States Christian Commission was another powerful 
organization, formed in November, 1861. During the early years 
of the war, Wisconsin's contributions thereto were made through 
the Northwestern Branch, at Chicago. A Wisconsin branch was 
organized October 8, 1864. Its forty-five representatives were 
often in the field, more than half of them being with our troops 
during the campaign ending in the surrender of Lee. During the 
nine months of its existence the Wisconsin branch expended about 
$75,000. 

" Objection lay in the fear that the armies might suffer by the 
long absence of invalids at points far distant from fields of action ; 
also, that desertion might thereby be encouraged. In practice, 
however, it was found that these fears were ill grounded. 

Many ailing Confederate prisoners were sent to hospitals in con- 
nection with Northern military camps. During a wild storm in 



346 WISCONSIN 

— at Madison in the autumn of 1863, and at Prai- 
rie du Chien and Milwaukee the following year. 
That at Madison was, in her honor, called Harvey 
Hospital, being immediately after the war con- 
verted into a soldiers' orphans' home. There were, 
in 1866, eight thousand such orphans in Wiscon- 
sin alone. 

Lieutenant-Governor Edward Salomon, a Prus- 
sian by birth, who succeeded Harvey in the execu- 
tive office (1862-63), had had but slight experi- 
ence in the public service, but soon displayed 
unexpected energy in the management of military 
affairs. Under his effective leadership new regi- 
ments were quickly raised and equipped, and sev- 
eral relief expeditions were sent to the sick and 
wounded in the field. In recognizing the services 
of Wisconsin's several war governors, — and the 
commonwealth was eminently fortunate in its chief 
executives during this trying period, — it is but 
just to state that they had upon their practically- 
unchanged military staff two men of unusual 
strength: Adjutant-General Augustus Gaylord 

the iiig-ht of April 6, 1862, the Confederates lost to the Union 
forces Island Number Ten, in the Mississippi River, near New 
Madrid, Missouri. Several hundred of the retreating forces, 
chiefly of the First Alabama Regiment, were captured and sent to 
Camp Randall, at Madison. Being in wretched condition, they 
were for the most part placed in hospital ; one hundred and thir- 
ty-nine died there, being buried in Forest Hill cemetery. The 
Confederate Veterans' Association has recently erected a suitable 
monument over their carefully marked graves. 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 347 

and Surgeon-General E. B. Wolcott. Gaylord's 
annual reports are monuments to his industry and 
capacity for details. As for Wolcott, he was 
throughout the war nearly always promptly on the 
•battlefield with assistants and supplies, whenever 
Wisconsin troops had suffered heavily, for the 
state continued thus to supplement the work of 
the Sanitary Commission ; he kept closely in touch 
with our regimental surgeons, and frequently vis- 
ited military hospitals in the South, ministering to 
the wounded and dying from his own state. 

At Shiloh, Tennessee (April 6-7), the Four- 
teenth, Sixteenth, and Eighteenth Wisconsin won 
unusual recognition. This was the first engage- 
ment for the last named two commands, but they 
held their ground with admirable nerve, and the 
war correspondents commended them highly. The 
Fourteenth had not arrived until the second day's 
battle, but at once was in the thick of the fight. 
Their daring charge of a Confederate battery, after 
a Kentucky regiment, preceding them, had been 
repulsed with heavy loss, elicited Grant's especial 
admiration. Three times driven back, the Wiscon- 
sin men, under Major John Hancock, gallantly 
carried the work and inaugurated a rout that re- 
sulted in a complete Union victory. 

In the Peninsula campaign of 1862, Wisconsin 
was represented by the Fifth and by Company 
G of Berdan's famous sharpshooters. At Wil- 
liamsburg, the Fifth, in Hancock's brigade, splen- 



348 WISCONSIN 

didly charged the enemy, and at the bayonet point 
turned the wavering fortunes of the day in favor 
of the Union. "Through you," said General McClel- 
lan, in addressing the regiment, " we won the day, 
and Williamsburg shall be inscribed upon your 
banner. Your country owes you its grateful thanks." 
To the War Department he telegraphed that the 
" charge was brilliant in the extreme." 

The Third was prominent in the Shenandoah 
Valley campaign of the same year. Speaking of 
the work at Gainesville, Virginia (August 28), of 
the celebrated Iron Brigade, — the Second, Sixth, 
and Seventh Wisconsin regiments constituted the 
greater part of its membership,^ — Pope said that 
they were " among the best troops in the service." 
In this, one of the sharpest and most disastrous of the 
minor battles of the war, the Second Wisconsin, 
leading the brigade, suffered casualties amounting 
to sixty per cent of its rank and file ; the loss sus- 
tained by the entire brigade was nine hundred 
men. 

In the second battle of Bull Run (August 30), 
the Iron Brigade again won distinction, successfully 
covering the retreat of Pope's army. Two weeks 
later, at South Mountain, Maryland (September 
13-14), these war-worn veterans drove the enemy 

^ Besides these regiments, the brigade contained the Nine- 
teenth Indiana until October, 1862, when the Twenty-fourth 
Michigan was added. This command sustained in the war the 
heaviest aggregate loss by brigade. 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 349 

from the national road at Turner's Gap, and in 
chasing them through Boonesboro led the entire 
Army of the Potomac, while receiving the enemy's 
retreating fire. 

At the battle of Antietam, Maryland (Septem- 
ber 16-17), characterized by Greeley as " the blood- 
iest day America ever knew," the Third Wisconsin 
— which five weeks before had opened the battle 
of Cedar Mountain, Virginia (August 9) — stood 
in an exposed position, firing steadily, " until the 
fallen cartridge papers, for months afterwards, 
showed by a strange windrow its perfect line of 
battle," and losing nearly two thirds of the men it 
took into the fight. One of the features of the day 
was the galling fire of the Sixth Wisconsin, of the 
Iron Brigade, from behind a rail fence. The Fifth 
stubbornly supported a battery during the heaviest 
fighting ; and Battery B of the United States 
Heavy Artillery (largely Wisconsin men) suffered 
on this field the heaviest loss met by any battery 
on either side in any single battle of the war. 

In the operations at Corinth, Mississippi (Octo- 
ber 3-4), the Fourteenth, heroes of Shiloh, was, the 
brigade commander reported, " the regiment to rely 
upon in every emergency ; always cool, steady, and 
vigorous." The Seventeenth distinguished itself in 
what was declared by the brigadier to be " the most 
glorious charge of the campaign." The Eighteenth 
received praise for " most effective service," and 
the Eighth and Sixteenth were also honorably 



350 WISCONSIN 

mentioned In tlie reports. The Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, 
and Twelfth batteries all " did noble work." 

At Chaplin Hills, Kentucky (October 8), Gen- 
eral Kousseau reported of the First Wisconsin, 
which had captured a stand of Confederate colors 
and were heroes of the day : " They drove the 
enemy several times with great loss, and until their 
ammunition gave out bravely maintained their po- 
sition." Of the Tenth, Rousseau declared, "Re- 
peatedly assailed by overwhelming numbers, after 
exhausting its ammunition it still held its position. 
These brave men are entitled to the gratitude of 
the country." Sergeant William Nelson of Com- 
pany I of the Tenth, with a detail of twenty-two 
men, for two hours held Paint Rock railroad bridge, 
near Huntsville, against a force of nearly three 
hundred Confederate cavalry, " repulsing them in 
the most signal manner." The Fifteenth captured 
heavy stores of ammunition and many prisoners. 
The Twenty-first, also, was an important factor in 
the fight ; and the Fifth Battery was thanked on the 
field by General McCook, for having thrice turned 
back a Confederate charge, thus " saving the 
division from a disgraceful defeat." 

On the seventh of December, at Prairie Grove, 
Arkansas, Wisconsin troops were consj^icuous. 
The Twentieth made a charge on a Confederate 
battery, in common with the Nineteenth Iowa, 
which Herron declared was " a glorious sight. 
Better men never went upon the field." The loss 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 351 

of the Twentieth was eighty-six in killed or mor- 
tally wounded, the largest death loss sustained by 
any Union regiment in any one battle in the war. 
Of the Second and Third Wisconsin Cavalry, who 
sharply attacked the Confederate left wing, Her- 
ron reported that they had proved themselves 
" worthy of the name of American soldiers." 

From December 11 to 15, in the battle of Fred- 
ericksburg, Virginia, the Iron Brigade, on the 
extreme left of the Union line, was constantly 
under severe artillery fire. 

Wisconsin was represented at Stone's River, 
Tennessee, during the final week of the year 
(1862), by the First, Tenth, Fifteenth, Twenty- 
first, and Twenty-fourth Infantry, and the Third, 
Fifth, and Eighth batteries. In his report. Gen- 
eral Scribner said that "the Tenth Wisconsin 
would have suffered extermination rather than 
yield its ground without orders." Kousseau de- 
clared that when his supply trains were attacked 
by the enemy's cavalry, " the burden of the fight 
fell on the Twenty-first Wisconsin, who behaved 
like veterans." Sheridan alluded to the "splendid 
conduct, bravery, and efficiency of the Twenty- 
fourth Wisconsin." The Fifth and Eighth bat- 
teries were also highly complimented for " deter- 
mined bravery and chivalrous heroism." 

While Wisconsin troops were thus creditably 
serving the nation at the front, and thereby win- 
ning honors for the commonwealth, the year 1862 



352 WISCONSIN 

was far from a cheerful one at home. Thousands 
of the state's most useful and vigorous citizens, the 
sort of men who in time of peace would have fur- 
nished the elements of commercial and industrial 
success, had either yielded up their lives, or been 
permanently disabled upon battlefields or by dis- 
ease contracted in unsanitary camps. It is esti- 
mated that an aggregate of seventy -five thousand 
Wisconsin men, half of the voters of the state, 
were for a period of over three years taken into 
the army directly from the ranks of productive 
industry. Their loss was in large measure com- 
pensated by the increased employment of women 
and children in the field and at the bench ; and 
crops were now being garnered by newly intro- 
duced labor-saving machinery, notably the reaper.^ 
Nevertheless, the cost of the war, which had as- 
sumed quite unlooked-for proportions, was, in the 
form of direct taxes, or in increased prices and low 
wages, or by reason of rapid depreciation of the 

^ The report of the United States Commissioner of Agricult- 
ure for 1862 asserts that owing- to the absence of so many farm 
laborers at the front, it would have been quite impossible to har- 
vest the wheat crop for that year, had it not been for the increased 
use of mechanical reapers, each of which effected a saving" of the 
labor of five men. 

In his messag-e to the Wisconsin leg-islature, dated January 15, 
1863, Governor Salomon said : " It is an occasion for congratula- 
tion that, notwithstanding the withdrawal from peaceful pursuits 
of so large a number of our citizens, who have volunteered in the 
country's behalf, the area of our cultivated crops has been in- 
creased rather than diminished during the past year." 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 353 

national currency, weighing heavily upon the peo- 
ple ; and as usual the burden was most severely 
felt by the poor. Anxiety was graven on every 
face. 

A minority of the Democratic party was much 
dissatisfied with the necessarily arbitrary war meas- 
ures of the federal government. The state conven- 
tion of that party, held at Milwaukee, September 
3, 1862, adopted as its platform (ayes 112, nays 
12) a long, argumentative appeal to the people 
(commonly called the " Ryan address," because 
prepared by Edward G. Ryan, the eminent jurist), 
in which various acts of the administration were 
severely criticised, notably the suspension within 
loyal states of the writ of habeas corjnis and of the 
freedom of the press. There was, in the convention 
itself, a storm of dissent from this address; and 
" War Democrats " throughout the state promptly 
held indignation meetings at which they branded 
the document as disloyal, while many of them 
openly joined the ranks of the Republicans. In 
fact, a large majority of our people, quite regard- 
less of party predilections, adhered to the war policy 
of Lincoln, and determined that the struggle should 
be maintained to the bitter end. 

While at first Wisconsin had more than met her 
quota by volunteers, eager to join the new regi- 
ments as they were formed, the drain became at 
last so great that only by conscription could enough 
men be secured. But among some of the newly 



354 WISCONSIN 

arrived European immigrants, not as yet suffi- 
ciently Americanized, there were many who, having 
escaped from militarism at home, objected to being 
forced to join the American army, and risk their 
lives in a quarrel concerning whose merits they 
were uninformed. In August, 1862, the President 
had called for three hundred thousand new troops, 
of which Wisconsin's share was twelve thousand. 
The draft began in November. Some of the Bel- 
gians of Ozaukee and Washington counties became 
riotous. Scenes of violence were enacted by them 
at Port Washington and West Bend, respectively ; 
but a bold front and arrests of leaders saved the 
day. At Milwaukee threatening mobs were easily 
overawed by troops who patrolled the streets of the 
city. No further armed opposition to this stern 
necessity of war was experienced within the state; 
but, as elsewhere in the North, hundreds of able- 
bodied citizens who were subject to conscription 
secretly fled to Canada or to Europe, to " avoid the 
draft." 

In neighboring Minnesota, Little Crow's band 
of rebellious Sioux for a time aroused grave alarm 
among the settlers (September, 1862), and it was 
feared that this Indian uprising might become 
general throughout the Northwest. Minnesota lost 
heavily in slaughtered families and ruined farms ; 
but Governor Salomon's prompt shipments of arms 
and ammunition to threatened counties in north- 
western Wisconsin convinced the restive Chip- 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 355 

pewa of that quarter that it would be unwise to 
repeat such outrages in the country east of the St. 
Croix. 

The Army of the Potomac's " mud campaign," 
in the early months of 1863, was participated in by 
many of the Wisconsin regiments. At Fitzhugh's 
Crossing, Virginia (April 29), the Iron Brigade 
did brilliant service in protecting the pontoon- 
layers, and in one of its bayonet charges carried 
Confederate rifle-pits and captured hundreds of 
prisoners. 

At ill-fated Chancellorsville, a few days later, 
the Third Wisconsin was the last to withdraw 
before the crushing advance of Stonewall Jackson ; 
while near by, on Marye's Hill, at Fredericksburg, 
the Fifth Wisconsin, together with the Sixth Maine, 
was leading the forlorn hope detailed to capture 
that famous height whereon six thousand Union 
soldiers had in the preceding December been 
slaughtered by the intrenched enemy. It was a 
wild and bloody scramble up the slippery, bowlder- 
strewn hill. The men from Wisconsin and Maine, 
although supported by New York and other regi- 
ments, were alone upon the first firing line, and 
captured redoubt after redoubt amid a terrible 
storm of grape and canister. Finally reaching the 
summit, although sadly depleted in numbers, they 
were rewarded by the generous cheering of the 
victorious army. When the Confederate com- 
mander handed his sword and spurs to Colonel 



356 WISCONSIN 

Allen of the Fifth, he declared it the most daring 
assault he had ever seen, and said that he had sup- 
posed there were not men enough in the Army of 
the Potomac to carry the works. Horace Greeley 
wrote : " Braver men never smiled on death, than 
those who climbed Marye's Hill on that fatal day." 
And the correspondent of the Southern-sympa- 
thizing London '"Times," writing from Lee's head- 
quarters, said that " never at Fontenoy, Albuera, 
nor at Waterloo was more undaunted courage 
shown." 

In the campaign leading to the fall of Vicksburg 
(1863), — probably the most decisive of all the 
Union victories, — Wisconsin was represented by 
thirteen infantry regiments, three batteries, and 
the Second Regiment of cavalry. Of the infantry, 
however, only the Eleventh, Fourteenth, Seven- 
teenth, Eighteenth, Twenty-third, and Twenty- 
ninth " shared the entire preceding campaign and 
were in the line of investment from the beginning 
to the surrender; " ^ but all of the batteries served 
conspicuously throughout, and Wisconsin men won 
high praise in the official reports. The Twenty- 
third, skirmishing in advance of the Union army, 
was the first regiment to enter Port Gibson (May 2), 
and in recognition of this served as provost guard 

^ William F. Vilas, "A View of the Vicksburg Campaig-n," 
Publications of Wisconsin History Commission, 1908. This state 
commission is charged with the publication of data concerning' 
Wisconsin's part in the War of Secession. 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 357 

of that town for the day. An officer of the same 
command received (July 4), at the base of the 
works, General Pemberton's offer to surrender. 
To the Fourteenth — " every man of whom is a 
hero," reported General Rousseau — was given the 
post of honor when that general's division entered 
Yicksburg after the surrender ; this regiment had 
in the great struggle suffered a loss of nearly half 
its men. 

The battle of Helena, Arkansas, culminated on 
the day when Vicksburg surrendered. General 
Frederick Salomon, a Wisconsin man (formerly 
colonel of the Ninth), planned the defenses that 
assured victory, and the Twenty-eighth Wisconsin 
was awarded special honors. Salomon reported that 
" the bravery and valor displayed by the officers 
and men of my gallant little command stand un- 
paralleled." When, five days later. Port Hudson, 
Louisiana, surrendered its garrison of six thousand, 
a charge into a ditch by the Fourth Wisconsin 
caused Greeley to declare that " never was fighting 
more heroic." 

While these deeds were being accomplished in 
the Mississippi valley, other events of great im- 
portance were occurring in the East. The bloodiest 
engagement of the war was fought at Gettysburg, 
Pennsylvania, during the first three days of July. 
Although wasted by a tedious march of a hundred 
and sixty miles, from which it had been given no 
time to recuperate, the Iron Brigade plunged into 



358 WISCONSIN 

the thickest of the fight. The Second Wisconsin, 
of that command, led its corjis on the 1st of July, 
and began the infantry part of the battle, receiving 
an opening volley that mowed down over thirty per 
cent of its rank and file. Eventually, this famous 
regiment lost in this titanic combat sixty per cent 
of the men it brought upon the field. The remainder 
of the Iron Brigade — save the Sixth Wisconsin, 
busy elsewhere, capturing a Mississippi regiment 
— was, on this opening day, close upon the heels 
of the Second, and took eight hundred prisoners. 
The entire loss of the brigade, which throughout 
the three-days' battle remained in an extremely 
exposed position, was 64.3 per cent of those it took 
into action. The Third Wisconsin was decimated 
under a heavy cross-fire, but drove Ewell from 
Gulp's Hill. Of the officers of the Twenty-sixth, 
only four remained unhurt. The Wisconsin com- 
pany of sharpshooters were an important element 
in opposing the final charge of the enemy. Com- 
pany F of the Seventh was the command to which 
Bret Harte's hero, the picturesque " John Burns 
of Gettysburg," since known to declamatory youth 
the country over, attached himself. " In swallow- 
tailed coat with smooth brass buttons," and with 
pockets filled with cartridges, this village character 
of a famous day nonchalantly " sniped the rebels 
who had driven away and milked his cows." ^ 

^ A picturesque account of the battle of Gettysburg- was written 
a few days after the event, by Lieutenant (later Colonel) Frank 



NEWS FKOM THE FRONT 359 

On the Georgian field of Chickamauga (Septem- 
ber 19, 20), the First, Tenth, Fifteenth, Twenty- 
first, and Twenty-fourth Wisconsin Infantry, and 
three of our batteries, suffered heavily ; some of 
these commands participated in the operations that 
won for General Thomas the sobriquet, " The 
rock of Chickamauga." Later, the same troops 
were besieged at Chattanooga and encountered 
much hardship, being in November relieved by 
Sherman with the famous Fifteenth Corps, to 
which the Eighteenth Wisconsin was attached. At 
the subsequent battle of Mission Ridge these Wis- 
consin troops proudly shared in the fearful charge 
to the summit, with them being now joined the 
Twenty-sixth Infantry. 

Among other notable military events in the clos- 
ing months of 1863 was the affair at Warrentou, 
Virginia (November 7). Here the Fifth Wisconsin 
and the Sixth Maine, heroes of Marye's Hill, led 
the Fifth and Sixth corps in a gallant charge which 

Aretas Haskell of the Sixth Wisconsin, then aide-de-camp to Gen- 
eral John Gibbon, commander of the Iron Brigade. First pub- 
lished as a pamphlet, it was reprinted in October, 1908, by the 
Wisconsin History Commission. Haskell distinguished himself on 
the third day by a feat of great valor, thus described by General 
Winfield S. Hancock in his official report : " At a critical period 
of the battle, when the contending forces were but 50 or 60 yards 
apart, believing that an example was necessary, and ready to sacri- 
fice his life, he rode between the contending lines with a view of 
giving encouragement to ours and leading it forward, he being at 
the moment the only mounted officer in a similar position. He 
was slightly wounded, and his horse was shot in several places." 



360 WISCONSIN 

resulted in the capture of sixteen hundred prison- 
ers and a large quantity of munitions of war. At 
Carrion Crow Bayou, Louisiana, in the same month, 
the bravery of the Twenty-sixth Wisconsin alone 
saved the Union forces from complete destruction 
in a forest ambush ; although in this brief but ter- 
rible conflict the fighting strength of the regiment 
was reduced from two hundred and twenty-six men 
to ninety-eight- 

On the night of February 9, 1864, a hundred 
and nine Union officers escaped from dreaded Libby 
Prison, at Richmond, Virginia, by means of a tun- 
nel dug by a contingent of prisoners under Colonel 
Thomas E. Rose of Pennsylvania, who throughout 
this daring enterprise acted in conjunction with 
Colonel H. C. Hobart of the Twenty-first Wiscon- 
sin. Among the twenty-eight who were run down 
and recaptured by the Confederates was Lieutenant 
Charles H. Morgan, also of the Twenty -first. Some- 
times Wisconsin soldiers were massed by hundreds 
in this as well as other Southern military prisons, 
and for months together suffered untold horrors 
in such dens of despair as Belle Isle, Danville, 
Cahawba, Florence, Macon, Salisbury, Camp Law- 
ton, Camp Sorghum, and Anderson ville.^ 

^ A typical story of life at and escape from a Confederate priST^H- 
■with consequent hazardous experiences of the fugitives, is told by 
General John Azor Kellog-g, of the Sixth Wisconsin (later com- 
mander of the Iron Brigade), in his remarkably vivid narrative, 
Capture and Escape, published by the Wisconsin History Commis- 
sion, 1908. 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 361 

When, in March following, Banks set out boldly 
to penetrate as far up Red River as Shreveport, Lou- 
isiana, the head of steam navigation, he had among 
his troops the Eighth, Fourteenth, Twenty-third, 
Twenty-ninth, and Thirty-third Wisconsin Infantry, 
and its Fourth Cavalry. During this unfortunate 
campaign Wisconsin men were prominent, and upon 
the retreat from Sabine Cross Roads (April 8) were 
the last to leave the field. The Eighth was also one 
of the favorite regiments in this as upon several 
other campaigns. Its sobriquet, " The Eagle Regi- 
ment," arose from the fact that the men of Com- 
pany C, recruited in the Eau Claire neighborhood, 
carried as a pet " Old Abe," a bald-headed eagle 
— the nation's emblem. This spirited and appar- 
ently sagacious bird was usually borne upon a 
perch, but in battle was fond of posing on a can- 
non and occasionally soaring and screaming far 
above the field of conflict. " Old Abe " won a repu- 
tation in the Union army quite equal, in a way, to 
that of any of its generals ; and for many years after 
the war was a popular attraction at national and 
state army reunions and other patriotic celebra- 
tions. 

The special honors of the Red River expedition 
were, however, won by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph 
Bailey of the Fourth Wisconsin. While the fleet 
was above the rapids at Alexandria, the stage of 
water fell, making it impossible for the vessels to 
descend, a perilous situation which encouraged the 



362 WISCONSIN 

enemy to swarm upon the banks and seriously to 
threaten. the little navy with destruction. Bailey 
was serving on Franklin's staff as chief engineer, 
and proposed the construction of a huge dam, by 
which the water in the river should be raised to a 
sufficient height ; then, the obstruction being sud- 
denly broken in the centre, the entrapped vessels 
might escape upon the outrushing flood. The scheme 
was familiar enough to Wisconsin lumbermen, who 
in this manner still artificially " lift " stranded rafts 
of logs ; but his army colleagues laughed at Bailey, 
although he was given three thousand men for the 
purpose, and told to amuse himself with this vision- 
ary experiment. His first requisition was for the 
" lumber boys " of the Twenty-third and Twenty- 
ninth Wisconsin, who appreciated what was needed 
in this backwoods engineering scheme, and soon 
trained their fellows to the task. Bailey's sappers 
worked unwearyingly through the first eight days 
of May, and on the morning of the twelfth the great 
gun-boats plunged through the boiling chute, thus 
triumphantly escaping the clutches of the discom- 
fited Confederates, who had thought the expedition 
an easy prey. Admiral Porter frankly acknowledged 
that the fleet owed its safety entirely to the Wis- 
consin engineer's " indomitable perseverance and 
skill ; " he was further presented by the naval offi- 
cers with a valuable sword and cup,^ was thanked 

1 Now in the museum of the Wisconsin Historical Society, at 
Madison. 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 363 

by the Navy Department, and soon was brevetted 
brigadier-general. 

In Grant's campaign against Richmond, the Iron 
Brigade served with the Fifth (Warren's) corps, 
and lost heavily in the Wilderness ; in the support 
of Hancock, at the " death angle " of Spottsylvania 
(May 12), the brigade repulsed five successive Con- 
federate assaults ; at Hatcher's Run, the Seventh 
Wisconsin made a large haul of prisoners, while at 
Jericho Bridge (May 25), at Bethesda Church (June 
1-3), and in the assaults on Petersburg (June 18 
and July 30), the brigade was a leading factor. 
The newly-organized Thirty-seventh Wisconsin had 
the misfortune to lead the charging party into the 
Petersburg crater (July 30), losing a hundred and 
forty-five men out of the two hundred and fifty-one 
sent out. At Hatcher's Run, the Thirty-sixth, also 
freshly recruited, cut through a line of the enemy 
and captured three times their number in prison- 
ers ; but at Bethesda Church lost sixty-nine per 
cent of the men they took into the fight. At Fair 
Oaks (October 27) the Nineteenth lost over half 
their number in a splendid charge that brought 
them deserved fame. 

Sherman's Atlanta campaign, opened in the 
spring of 1864, brought Wisconsin again to the 
fore, that general having selected for his model 
army fifteen regiments and three batteries from 
this state. From Chattanooga to Atlanta they were 
constantly under fire, and daily were represented 



364 WISCONSIN 

on the skirmish lines thrown out in advance of the 
army. The Twelfth and Sixteenth were members 
of McPherson's " whip-lash corps," famed for 
quick flank movements that astonished and almost 
always overwhelmed the enemy. When, in Septem- 
ber, after a long series of fierce battles — such as 
Dalton, Resaca, Kenesaw Mountain, Peachtree 
Creek, Allatoona Pass, and Leggitt's Hill — the 
Union forces marched victorious into Atlanta^ 
Company A of the Twenty-second Wisconsin led 
the advance. 

In November and December, Wisconsin infantry 
were figuring valorously, but with frightful loss of 
life, in operations around Nashville, Tennessee, 
Under Schofield, the Twenty-fourth had a fierce 
brush with Hood (November 29) ; but on Decem- 
ber 16, while a part of Thomas's army, the Eighth, 
Twenty-fourth, and Thirty-third assisted in crush- 
ing Hood's left flank and creating wild havoc in 
the Confederate ranks. 

When, in November, Sherman set forth from 
Atlanta on his picturesque " march to the sea," 
there were in his train eleven infantry regiments 
and three batteries from Wisconsin, all of which 
were conspicuous participants in this resistless 
charge through the heart of the South. The gen- 
eral always relied on them for the hardest work, 
and wherever discretion was most needed, and was 
not slow to sound their praise. In the subsequent 
siege of Savannah, and the difficult advance north- 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 365 

ward through the Caroliuas, in the early months 
of 1865, the loss to Wisconsin commands was con- 
siderable, but they never suffered defeat. 

It was quite evident early in April (1865), that 
the war was nearing its end. Sherman's victorious 
army was eager to join Grant and the Army of the 
Potomac, and assist in making an end of Lee's 
forces and of his stronghold, Richmond. The news 
reached them at Goldsboro', North Carolina, on 
April 6, that Richmond had fallen three days be- 
fore, and that Lee was hurrying to join Johnston. 
Sherman at once turned aside from the road to 
Richmond, and thought to intercept Lee at either 
Raleigh or Smithfield. However, a few days later a 
horseman rode along the lines, shouting the bulle- 
tin from Appomattox Court House (April 9), that 
" Grant has captured Lee's army ! " The news of 
Lincoln's assassination (April 14) soon followed ; 
but this tragedy could not stem the tide, and 
on the twenty-sixth Johnston surrendered near 
Raleigh, his submission being followed in quick 
succession by that of the other Confederate com- 
manders. 

We have of necessity followed more closely the 
experiences of our infantry than those of other 
arms of the service. But Wisconsin cavalry regi- 
ments were frequently heard from throughout the 
war, and were no less famous than the infantry 
commands. The First had at the outset been en- 
gaged in Missouri on scouting service. In Tennes- 



366 WISCONSIN 

see it led many gallant forays. It made its mark, 
also, at Chickamauga ; was with Sherman on the 
Atlanta campaign ; and with Wilson in his bold 
raid through Alabama and Georgia. At Fort Tyler 
it fought dismounted ; and a detachment under 
Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Harnden cooperated 
with the Fourth Michigan Cavalry in the capture 
of President Davis (May 10, 1865). The Second 
marched and skirmished all over Louisiana, Texas, 
and Arkansas. The Third, while chasing guerrillas 
in Arkansas, engaged in many a brush with Quan- 
trell's band, and made a particularly brilliant re- 
cord at Prairie Grove. The Fourth was for two 
years a popular infantry regiment, but after Sep- 
tember, 1863, had a dashing career as cavalry in 
Louisiana and Texas. It has been claimed that 
this command served the longest term of any vol- 
unteer regiment in the service. The Wisconsin 
batteries, also, won high honors on many fields of 
action, some of their deeds having already been 
mentioned. The state's representatives in the navy 
included several who achieved renown for indi- 
vidual valor. ^ Wisconsin was also represented in 

1 On the night of October 27, 1864, W. B. Gushing, a native of 
Delafield, Waukesha County, headed a party of fourteen men on 
an improvised torpedo boat, and in the face of apparently insuper- 
able obstacles blew up the much-dreaded Confederate ram, Albe- 
marle, in Albemarle Sound, North Carolina. His companions 
were captured, but Cushing made a daring escape. The naval his- 
torian J. R. Soley wrote : " It is safe to say that the naval history of 
the world affords no other example of such marvelous coolness 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 367 

various companies of scouts, whose thrilling ad- 
ventures alone would make an interesting: volume. 

James T. Lewis had succeeded Governor Salo- 
mon in January, 1864. To him fell the pleasure, 
on April 10, 1865, of formally announcing to the 
people of the state what was practically the close 
of the war. The legislature had previously selected 
that day as the time for final adjournment of its 
annual session ; but just before the hour agreed 
upon, the following executive message was received 
with cheers : " Four years ago on the day fixed for 
adjournment, the sad news of the fall of Fort 
Sumter was transmitted to the legislature. To-day, 
thank God, and next to Him the brave officers and 
soldiers of our army and navy, I am permitted to 
transmit to you the official intelligence, just re- 
ceived, of the surrender of General Lee and his 
army — the last prop of rebellion. Let us rejoice 
and thank the Ruler of the Universe for victory 
and the prospect of an honorable peace." 

Three days later, recruiting was discontinued 
in this state. During the summer the Wisconsin 
offices of the provost marshals were closed ; and 
in the following autumn and winter, at intervals, 
our regiments were disbanded, a task not at once 
possible to complete, for on the fall of the Confeder- 
acy some of the Wisconsin troops were sent into 

and professional skill as that shown by Gushing-." The hero was 
thanked by Congress, congratulated by the Navy Department, 
and made a lieutenant-commander. 



368 WISCONSIN 

the Southwest to keep Mexican raiders from cross- 
ing the Rio Grande, and into the Northwest to pro- 
tect the Indian frontier. By the close of the year, 
however, the greater part of our bronzed and 
war-scarred veterans had, after being joyously wel- 
comed home by their grateful fellow citizens, quietly 
settled down again into civil life — on the farms, 
in the workshops and offices, at the counter and 
desk; or, through the acquiring of government lands 
in central and northern Wisconsin, extended the 
agricultural frontier. 

On every hand was now heard but one desire, 
that of restoring prosperity to the " Badger State," 
after these four long and painful years of strife 
that seemed to have taxed to the utmost its re- 
sources of men and treasure. As Governor Lucius 
Fairchild forcefully said in his inaugural address 
( January 1, 1866 ) : " A million of men have re- 
turned from the war, been disbanded in our midst, 
and resumed their former occupations. . . . The 
transition from the citizen to the soldier was not 
half so rapid, nor half so wonderful, as has been 
the transition from the soldier to the citizen. The 
citizen soldier has become the plain citizen," alive 
to the gravity of new political, financial, and social 
problems facing the nation and state, and eager 
to assist in their solution. 

First and last throughout the war, the state had 
furnished, as reported by the governor to the legis- 
lature, a few days later, " fifty-two regiments of 



NEWS FROM THE FRONT 369 

infantry, four regiments and one company of cav- 
alry, one regiment of twelve batteries of heavy 
artillery, thirteen batteries of light artillery, one 
company of sharpshooters, and three brigade bands, 
besides recruits for the navy and United States 
organizations,^ numbering in all 91,379, of which 
number 79,934 were volunteers, 11,445 drafted 
men and substitutes. The total quota of the state 
under all calls is 90,116. . . . The state stands 
credited with 1263 men, as an excess over all calls, 
a gratifying evidence of the devoted patriotism of 
the people of Wisconsin. The total military serv- 
ice from the state has been about equal to one in 
every nine of the entire population, or one in every 
five of the entire male population, and more than 
one from every two voters of the state. The losses 
by death alone, omitting all other casualties, are 
10,752, or about one in every eight in the service." 
When it is considered that practically each death 
meant an empty chair in some Wisconsin home, to 
say nothing of many thousands of lives wrecked by 
disease or maiming (the gallant governor had him- 
self lost an arm at Gettysburg), the chief execu- 
tive's careful statistics become eloquent. 

Governor Fairchild further reported that during 
the contest there had been paid out of the state 
treasury for war purposes — extra pay for soldiers 
supporting families, and the expenses of recruiting 

^ Wisconsin contributed 133 men to the navy and 165 to the col- 
ored troops, and was represented in various companies of scouts. 



370 WISCONSIN 

and of state military offices, being the largest 
items — the enormous sum of approximately S3,- 
900,000 ; counties, cities, and towns had raised by 
public tax a further #7,752,505.67, making an offi- 
cial total for Wisconsin of some 811,652,505.67. 
To this should be added large sums " paid by lo- 
calities, by tax levied last year, of which the state 
has no account." In due time the general govern- 
ment gradually refunded to the state the amount 
it had itself expended on behalf of the war ; but 
the still greater local burden was never lightened. 



CHAPTER XVII 

INCIDENTS OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 

We have seen that the ante helium history of 
Wisconsin was profoundly affected by its remark- 
able geographical position. Lying between the 
Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, and abut- 
ting upon their respective headsprings, its territory 
is traversed by streams debouching into both drain- 
age systems, and from time immemorial these fur- 
nished the aborigines with convenient portage 
routes between one and the other. This interesting 
fact induced the voyage hither of Nicolet, at a 
time when the remainder of what is now called the 
Middle West — the Northwest of early days — was 
quite unknown to white men. 

Both French Canada and early Louisiana sought 
the trade of this land wherein was the keystone of 
the arch of French occupation in North America. 
By the Great Lakes and the Ottawa came Mon- 
treal and Quebec fur-traders, and Wisconsin pel- 
tries and lead reached the market of New Orleans 
upon the swift current of the Mississippi ; while by 
means of the Mohawk and the lower lakes adven- 
turous English traders from Albany occasionally 
poached upon this French preserve. Under the 



372 WISCONSIN 

English regime, and later while the American fur- 
trade was dominant in the Northwest, Green Bay 
was a dependency of Mackinac and Montreal, while 
Prairie du Chien was much influenced by overtures 
from St. Louis and the South. 

In a previous chapter it has been shown that 
the earliest American miners in the Galena dis- 
trict, which includes southwestern Wisconsin, came 
by way of the Mississippi. Even after the irrup- 
tion of operators from New York and New Eng- 
land, Southern goods and ideals were prevalent in 
this region, the product of which long sought East- 
ern markets by the roundabout route of New Or- 
leans and the Gulf of Mexico. Its strong Southern 
connection noticeably differentiated the lead mine 
country from eastern Wisconsin, whose outlet to 
the world in the days before railroads was Lake 
Michigan. The personnel of the two districts was, 
in territorial days, quite as distinct as their trade 
relations, early giving rise to that political and 
social rivalry so strikingly typified in the careers 
of Doty and of Dodge, each the idol of his region, 
but by the other mistrusted and often maligned. 

The opening of the Erie Canal made Eastern 
markets much more accessible to dwellers upon the 
Great Lakes, a factor materially assisting in the 
development of eastern and southern Wisconsin. 
A decreasing stage of water in the Mississippi, in- 
cident upon the demolition of forests on its head- 
waters, with consequent interruption to southward 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 373 

navigation, caused the lead miners of tlie Galena 
region to look enviously upon the Great Lakes and 
the canal as a transportation route. It will be 
remembered that attempts to deepen the old-time 
Fox- Wisconsin waterway, with a view to relieving 
the lead trade, early proved abortive ; as was also, 
for other reasons, the scheme of a canal connecting 
the Milwaukee and Rock rivers. An Illinois canal 
between Lake Michigan and Illinois River afforded 
some temporary assistance. The picturesque but 
costly overland wagon caravans between the mines 
and Lake Michigan ports have been described. 

Just before the war railroads were pushed 
through from the great lake to the great river, be- 
tween Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien (1858) and 
La Crosse (1859), so that at last the lead miners 
had their long-sought outlet to the East, and set- 
tlers on the upper reaches of the Mississippi were 
no longer entirely dependent on transportation 
through the South. By the time, however, that this 
result had been accomplished, the Wisconsin lead 
industry had, from causes already explained, suf- 
fered a serious decline ; but the railroads, lacking 
expected patronage from the mines, at once took 
prominent part in developing the far more import- 
ant agricultural interests of the state. 

From a political and military point of view, these 
new highways of commerce came soon to be 
of still greater significance. The secession of 
the Southern states resulted in the closing of the 



374 WISCONSIN 

Mississippi to Northern trade. The immediate ef- 
fect of this action upon Western interests will best 
be appreciated, when it is reflected that before the 
war the Southern states themselves annually pur- 
chased many millions of dollars' worth of West- 
ern cattle, grain, and manufactures, and that New 
Orleans was the most important entre2jdt for the 
millions of bushels of Western wheat and other 
exports seeking world markets.^ 

In any earlier decade this closing of the great river 
might well have given pause to all Northern states 
bordering thereon. It might possibly have induced 
some of them, following their exports, to cast lot 
with the South ; as some Western communities had 
indeed been inclined to do when, seventy years be- 
fore, the Spanish embargo was in force at New 
Orleans. But with the new railroad connection 
between river and lakes, in Wisconsin and Illinois, 
with a succession of bad crops in England creating 

1 The New York Tribune for June 13, 1861 (p. 4) strongly 
portrays the situation. Sixteen million dollars' worth of steam- 
boats, it reports, are engaged in the Mississippi River trade — 1600 
in number, giving " employment to thousands of men, and life and 
animation to entire cities. . . . No other river on earth has 
ever possessed a fleet so capacious, nor a traffic that could sustain 
it." This business had " a future of indefinite magnitude, when 
the blight of rebellion smote it with destructive palsy." Of Cin- 
cinnati's exports alone, annually aggregating $107,000,000 in fur- 
niture, clothing, whiskey, and foodstuffs, the South bought two 
thirds. "A thousand loyal communities " are similarly affected, 
and " the few boats which descend the river come crowded with 
fugitives from a common ruin." 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 375 

a ready market abroad, through Eastern ports, for 
American foodstuffs, and with great Northern 
armies to supply at home, there was now no such 
thoug-ht. The effect in Wisconsin was to divert 
trade from the river to the lakes — a hastening, 
however, of what must, with the advent of rail- 
roads, soon have happened under normal condi- 
tions.^ 

Nevertheless, the reopening of the Mississippi to 
commerce was regarded by contemporary statesmen 
as an economic necessity of the utmost importance. 
Stephen A. Douglas had declared (April 20, 1861) 
that " the very existence of the people in this great 
valley depends on maintaining inviolate and for- 
ever the great right secured by the Constitution, of 
freedom of trade, transit, and of commerce, from 
the centre of the continent to the ocean that sur- 
rounds it." Governor Randall of Wisconsin, in a 
message to the legislature (May 15, 1861), said 
that "the vast lumber and mineral interests of 
Wisconsin, independent of her commanding pro- 
duce and stock trade, bind her fast to the North, 
Border, and Northwestern states, and demand, like 

1 " The through freight from Prairie du Chien in the year be- 
fore the war amounted to 9960 tons ; in 1861 it was 115,123 ; in 
1865, 161,317 tons. That from La Crosse in 1860 was 28,627 tons ; 
in 1861,89,940 ; in 1862, 89,882, clearly indicating the influence 
of the war in altering the channels of commerce." — C. R. Fish, 
Phases of the Economic History of Wisconsin, 1860-70, a thought- 
ful and helpful monograph, giving facts which we have freely 
used in this connection. 



376 WISCONSIN 

them, the free navigation of the Mississippi and all 
its tributaries." And when, in 1863, supreme 
efforts were being directed to force the river open, 
by means of the Vicksburg campaign, Governor 
Salomon assured the legislature (January 15) that 
" the opening of the Mississippi, in which, with 
other states, we have a direct interest even beyond 
that which the nation in general feels in the free 
passage of that great natural thoroughfare, would 
give new and additional life to our commerce." 

The regaining of the Mississippi was of immense 
military importance to the Union arms, but not so 
vital, commercially, as had been expected. By the 
close of the war, the habit of using the railways 
had become so fixed among manufacturers, farm- 
ers, and travelers, that thereafter began a steady 
decline in steamboat traffic ; as evidenced by the 
fact that Mississippi Kiver tonnage amounting in 
1860 to 468,000 tons had by 1870 fallen to 398,- 
000 — an advance in the latter year of only twelve 
per cent over 1863, when it had reached its lowest 
point. On the other hand, the tonnage on the Great 
Lakes increased thirty-five per cent between 1860 
and 1863. 

The effect of this sudden and remarkable devel- 
opment of Wisconsin's new east-going avenues of 
trade was greatly to enhance the growth and rela- 
tive importance of Milwaukee. By the opening of 
the war this state had become one of the principal 
producers of wheat, and Milwaukee its chief port 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 377 

for the shipment of surplus products. In 1862 the 
tonnage of vessels using Milwaukee harbor was 
25,844 ; but a twelvemonth following this figure 
had leaped to 140,771. The population of the city 
rose from 45,000 in 1860 to nearly 55,000 in 1865, 
an increase of twenty-three per cent, which was 
almost double that of the commonwealth itself 
during the same period. The impetus thus given 
to Milwaukee was such as to assure her future as a 
great lake port. In due time she became a promi- 
nent centre for the influx and distribution of immi- 
grants both from the Eastern states and from 
Europe, her manufacturing interests grew to large 
proportions, and her commerce and population 
kept full pace with the growth of the sturdy state 
of which she had early become the metropolis. 

We have alluded to the slow but steady advance 
in the state's population during the war period, 
also to the considerable extension of the agricult- 
ural frontier in western and northern Wisconsin 
by disbanded Union veterans. Even during the 
years 1860-65 no less than 338,000 acres of wild 
lands were sold in Wisconsin by the federal and 
state governments, and by such railroad and canal 
companies as had received aid through land grants; 
whereas in the following five years the acreage sold 
was 896,000. In the decade ending with 1870 the 
total farm acreage had advanced from nearly 
8,000,000 to about 12,000,000, or some forty-six 
per cent ; while the acreage of actual cultivation 



378 WISCONSIN 

had increased by fifty-seven per cent. The political 
defection of Virginia, with the closing of its to- 
bacco fields to general commerce, greatly stimulated 
the growth of this crop in the North. Wisconsin 
was found to excel in soil and climate for the 
variety used for cigar wrappers ; the result being 
that the 87,000 pounds raised in this state in 1860 
had become 314,000 in 1865. As Southern cotton 
advanced in price, woolen goods had grown in favor, 
so that by the close of the war Wisconsin farmers 
were not only supplying the increased number of 
local mills, but were exporting wool in large quan- 
tities. 

During the decade 1860-70 manufacturing es- 
tablishments within the state had doubled in num- 
ber, the capital engaged had increased two and a 
half times, and the number of factory employees 
was nearly 30,000 greater in 1870 than in 1860. 
These facts, in conjunction with the large increase 
in farming operations, explain the readiness with 
which the returning soldiers were absorbed into 
the industries of the commonwealth. On the whole, 
Wisconsin had made considerable economic and 
social advance during the harassing period of the 
war, although of course far less marked progress 
than would have been noted had there been con- 
tinuous peace. 

Despite this growth of our industrial boundaries, 
there was but slight extension of railway mileage 
in Wisconsin within the decade which included 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 379 

the war. Scarcity of circulating medium was one 
potent reason ; but another was, that Iowa, Min- 
nesota, and other trans-Mississippi regions were 
insistently demanding transportation to the lake 
ports of Chicago and Milwaukee, and seemed to 
offer a more attractive field for speculative enter- 
prise. Liberal land grants were being offered by 
the federal government as an inducement to com- 
panies developing these newer districts, and im- 
mediately after the war both American settlers 
and European immigrants rushed thither to break 
the virgin soil. By 1870 it was recognized that in 
the matter of railroad building Wisconsin was not 
as enterprising as her neighbors to the west of the 
river ; but it should be taken into consideration 
that the principal industry of the state, lumbering, 
was almost exclusively using the abundant lakes 
and rivers for the transportation of logs and rafts 
both from forest to mill and from mill to the great 
markets of Chicago and St. Louis. 

We have already alluded to some of the legis- 
lative scandals associated with the granting of Wis- 
consin railway charters previous to the war. Not 
only was the state government of that time impli- 
cated in questionable practices in this regard, but 
the feverish zeal of communities and individuals 
to foster railway extension also gave rise here and 
there to financial operations that left a sting. Farm- 
ers living along prospective *' rights of way " 
were induced by glib-tongued agents to mortgage 



380 WISCONSIN 

their farms in aid of these enterprises, being as- 
sured that enormous dividends would ensue and the 
value of their land be greatly enhanced. It is esti- 
mated that in the aggregate there were issued for 
this purpose nearly four thousand farm mortgage 
notes alone, the face value of which amounted to 
somewhat over four million dollars. Some of the 
village and city governments were similarly hood- 
winked, and freely bonded themselves to " help the 
road." Sold to innocent purchasers, usually through 
Eastern brokers, these individual notes and muni- 
cipal bonds, despite the fact that many of the com- 
panies failed to construct the projected lines, came 
soon to prove nightmares to their signers, and fore- 
closure suits followed quickly upon non-payment 
of interest. Long and expensive litigation failed to 
bring relief, for the contracts were astutely drawn, 
and ruin was widely wrought.^ 

1 In 1853, the city of Watertown bonded itself to the amount 
of $80,000, at eight per cent, payable in ten years, to aid the 
Milwaukee and Watertown Railroad Company, the latter guaran- 
teeing payment of principal and interest, a promise supposed to 
be secured by the deposit of collateral stock with the city. Again, 
in 1856, the city issued $200,000 worth of bonds to the Watertown 
and Madison, and a like amount to the Chicago, St. Paul, and 
Fond du Lac. The bonds of the last-named company were paid, 
but the other two lines were not constructed. The paper was, 
however, sold in the open market at from five to ten per cent of 
its face value. Watertown sought to evade payment. From 1872 
to 1892 a curious method of evasion was practiced, by which each 
newly elected city council would meet secretly and vote the taxes 
for the year ; then the mayor and junior aldermen would resign, 
leaving the senior aldermen to form themselves into a board of 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 381 

It is small wonder that these early experiences 
led many of the people of Wisconsin to look 
askance upon railway corporations, despite the un- 
doubted fact that roads of steel largely contributed 
to the making of the state. Addressing the legis- 
lature on January 10, 1867, Governor Fairchild 
said : — 

The strife which for years past has existed between a 
portion of our people and various corporations of the 
state has, I regret to say, in nowise abated. Complaints 
of injustice and oppression on the part of railroad com- 
panies are still heard. A portion of our people are still 
complaining that unjust discriminations are made by 
these corporations, and demanding the aid of legislative 
enactment to reduce the tariffs of freight to a more equi- 
table standard. The companies, on the other hand, still 
earnestly assert that their charges are just and equitable. 
If the railroad companies are in the wrong, either in 
whole or in part, the fact should be ascertained, and the 
wrong corrected by proper legislation. I know of no 
better plan for procuring the data necessary to intelli- 
gent action, than by the appointment of a committee 
from your body, or by the appointment of a commission, 
to investigate thoroughly and carefully the whole ques- 
tion, and to submit the result of such investigation to 
this or a succeeding legislature. It is especially due to 
the people, and it is your peculiar province, as their 
chosen guardians, to stand between them and injustice 

street commissioners, devoid of tax-levying' power. The matter 
was finally adjusted by the city paying $15,000 as settlement for 
outstanding judgments aggregating $600,000. 



382 WISCONSIN 

and oppression, from whatever source they may come, 
and I am confident you will discharge this duty without 
fear or favor. 

Nothing, however, then came of this suggestion 
of a commission. In 1869 there was a vigorous 
attempt to pass a bill to establish railway rates, 
but it was defeated. A like measure came before 
the legislature the following year, with further pro- 
visions regulating running connections, induced by 
the then common failure of rival roads to provide 
proper connections at junctions. The contest de- 
veloped much bitterness ; but the only railway 
legislation enacted was a bill authorizing cities and 
towns to lend their credit in the aid of new roads, 
to an extent not exceeding §5000 per mile, the 
municipalities to accept bonds as securities for the 
loan. 

In January, 1873, Governor Cadwallader C. 
Washburn pointed out to the legislature that "vast 
and overshadowing corporations in the United 
States are justly a source of alarm, and the legis- 
lature cannot scan too closely every measure that 
comes before them which proposes to give addi- 
tional rights and privileges to the railways of the 
state." 

This warning came just previous to a financial 
panic that profoundly affected the commercial and 
manufacturing interests of Wisconsin, in common 
with those of other states. One result of the finan- 
cial storm of 1873 was the customary defeat of the 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 383 

dominant party. The Democratic-Liberal Keform- 
ers came into power in January, 1874, with Wil- 
liam R. Taylor as governor, supported by an 
assembly of his political faith ; but the senate, 
owing to half of the body being hold-over members, 
remained Republican. The most conspicuous legis- 
lation was an act called the " Potter Law," or 
*• Granger Law," ^ which asserted the right of the 
state to regulate railroad freight and passenger 
rates within the commonwealth through a board 
of three commissioners clothed with almost auto- 
cratic powers. 

The legislature adjourned on March 13. A fort- 
night later the presidents of the St. Paul and the 
Northwestern systems — then, as now, the principal 
companies operating in the state — officially in- 
formed the governor that their respective corpora- 
tions would " disregard so much of the law as 
attempts to fix an arbitrary rate of compensation 
for freight and passengers." Their contention was, 
that the rates fixed by law would " amount to con- 
fiscation, as the working expenses could scarcely 
be paid under it." Governor Taylor issued a pro- 
clamation to the effect that, unless the companies 

^ Members of a widespread farmers' secret organization, the 
Patrons of Husbandry, expressing themselves through local lodges 
(or "granges "), had been particularly active in electing Taylor. 
They were commonly called " Grangers," and the term " Granger 
legislation " became attached to laws restricting the railroads. 
Senator R. L. D. Potter, of Waushara County, introduced the 
bill. 



384 WISCONSIN 

submitted, lie would use to the utmost all the great 
powers of his office to compel them to do so. 
Action was thereupon brought in the state supreme 
court, in the nature of a quo warranto^ for the 
annulment of the charters of the transgressing 
roads. 

Application was also made to the supreme court 
by the attorney-general, for an injunction restrain- 
ing the companies from further disobedience of the 
law. A long legal fight followed, that attracted 
national attention, with the result that the court 
granted the injunction, the decision in the case 
being written by Chief Justice Edward G. Ryan. 
Judge Ryan held that " in our day the common 
law has encountered in England, as in this coun- 
try, a new power, unknown to its founders, prac- 
tically too strong for its ordinary private remedies. 
... It comports with the dignity and safety of 
the state that the franchises of corporations should 
be subject to the power that grants them, that cor- 
porations should exist as the subordinates of the 
state which is their creator." The attorney-general 
was, on his part, instructed not to prosecute the 
companies for forfeiture of charters until the latter 
were given a reasonable time to arrange their 
tariffs under the new law. 

In the United States District Court at Madison, 
a suit of stockholders of the Northwestern Railway, 
praying for an injunction against the state, on the 
ground that the value of their securities was being 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 385 

depreciated by the Potter Law, was decided against 
the petitioners, so far as the validity of the law 
was concerned. The question as to the state's right 
to interfere with interstate commerce, however, 
was left undecided, as the court desired to hear 
further argument. 

Thus the companies were defeated at every 
point, so far as traffic within the state was con- 
cerned, and open opposition ceased. But more 
effective measures were now resorted to by them, 
to influence public opinion against the law. Eu- 
ropean capitalists, who at that time were chiefly 
relied upon for assistance in American railroad 
development, declined further investments in the 
stock of such roads as ran through the " Granger 
states " — some of the neighboring commonwealths 
having followed Wisconsin's example. Work on 
roads in course of building was suspended, pro- 
jected lines were abandoned, some of the smaller 
towns were, on the plea of enforced economy, badly 
treated in the matter of service, and everywhere 
railroad employees were spreading reports that 
Grangerism was spelling ruin to the companies on 
whom Wisconsin so largely depended for prosper- 
ity. In 1876 the Reform party was buried beneath 
a mountain of opposition ballots, the sting in the 
railroad law was promptly removed by the new legis- 
lature, and the Granger movement became a closed 
chapter. 

Throughout the eighties Wisconsin experienced 



386 WISCONSIN 

a remarkable revival of railway building. New iron 
and copper mines were discovered in northern Wis- 
consin and on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. 
During this period large numbers of prosperous 
Wisconsin farmers sought the Dakotas and other 
trans-Mississippi states, and sprinkled the names 
of Wisconsin towns over the map of that new 
region ; but the influx from Central and Eastern 
states and from Europe far outstripped the exodus, 
and central, northern, and northwestern Wiscon- 
sin, heretofore much neglected, now settled rapidly. 
Much of the railroad building was speculative ; for, 
as usual in the West, lines were often projected 
far in advance of actual settlement. Some of the 
companies met serious reverses as the only reward 
of enterprise born of the splendid imagination of 
their founders ; but in the end the prophets were 
justified. Great uninhabited stretches of cut-over 
forests were opened into farms, waterpowers were 
developed, quarries and mines were opened, mis- 
cellaneous industries were gradually introduced to 
replace the slowly-receding lumber mills, frontier 
shanty hamlets grew into small cities, and they into 
communities having more and more a metropolitan 
appearance. 

In 1905, after some years of renewed agitation, 
recalling not a few aspects of the Grangerism of 
three decades previous, the state created a new 
railroad-rate-regulating commission, composed of 
three members with large powers. Two years later 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 387 

there were placed under the jurisdiction of this 
body the various other public utility corporations 
of the state, — those operating street and inter- 
urban railroads, sleeping cars, gas plants, electric 
power and lighting plants, waterworks, and the like. 
The constitutionality of laws creating this public 
utilities commission having been called in question, 
the state supreme court rendered a decision on 
June 5, 1908, confirming the validity of the com- 
mission and declining to hamper its operations so 
long as stockholders were allowed a " reasonable 
compensation " for their investment. Corporations 
of this character are now taxed by the state upon 
an ad valorem basis, the valuation of their tangible 
property being established by the State Tax Com- 
mission (created in 1899), which employs for this 
purpose a competent staff of engineers, appraisers, 
and accountants. 

The extension of railways throughout the dense 
forests of northern Wisconsin was the chief factor 
in conquering that vast wilderness. But the build- 
ing of towns in the heart of the " pinery," and the 
construction of sawmills both in such communities 
and at tiny milling hamlets scattered along the 
wooded shores of rivers and lakes, gave rise to 
grave dangers from fire. Frequently a town was 
hemmed in upon every side by dense, highly 
inflammable woods that for hundreds of miles 
extended in every direction ; the only openings 
being occasional watercourses and the narrow path 



388 WISCONSIN 

of the railway that connected the settlement with 
both neighbors and market. 

Towns and hamlets were themselves loosely, 
often shabbily, constructed of timber ; the principal 
streets were apt either to be paved with pine planks 
or covered by a soft mat of sawdust ; swampy 
places, as at Oshkosh and Fond du Lac, were filled 
with sawmill offal ; in the cut-over portions, great 
piles of cast-off boughs (" slashings," in the ver- 
nacular), dry as tinder, encumbered the ground ; 
and even where farms had been opened, there were 
haystacks, heavy fences of split rails, and piles of 
such forest products as hemlock bark, fence posts, 
and cord wood, all well calculated to assist in hold- 
ing and spreading fire. The resinous forests and 
the wooden towns, blistering in the heat after a 
long midsummer drought, required but a spark 
from some passing railway locomotive, from some 
sawmill fueled with its own airy offal, or from a 
careless hunter's camp, to start a blaze that could 
not be extinguished until it had swept the country- 
side like a besom. Forests and towns went down 
before it like chaff, human beings were burned to a 
crisp in the leaping flames, and the financial loss 
was enormous. 

On the 8th and 9th of October, 1871, following 
a drought of three months' duration, Wisconsin 
experienced one of the most appalling forest 
conflagrations in recorded history, the region 
affected being portions of Oconto, Brown, Door, 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 389 

Shawano, Manitowoc, and Kewaunee counties. 
Over a thousand lives were lost, nearly as many 
persons were miserably crippled, and three thou- 
sand were beggared. The disaster centred at the 
town of Peshtigo, on the shores of lower Green 
Bay, hence is historically referred to as " the Pesh- 
tigo fire." Nearly 1200,000 was raised for the 
immediate care of unfortunate survivors, and ex- 
pended under state control. The United States 
government liberally distributed army stores among 
them ; even Europe sent contributions ; nearly 
every manufacturing or commercial interest in the 
country contributed liberally ; railway, express, and 
telegraph companies made no charges in the for- 
warding of relief and of messages, and probably 
few persons in Wisconsin failed in some manner 
to contribute their quota of assistance. 

Other notable and typical forest or sawmill fires 
in Wisconsin have been those at Oshkosh, April 
28, 1875, whereby about half of this prosperous 
manufacturing city was destroyed ; at Marshfield, 
June 27, 1887, that city of three thousand inhab- 
itants being almost obliterated, fifteen hundred 
people being rendered homeless, and a loss entailed 
of from two to three millions of dollars ; at Iron 
River, forty miles southeast of Superior, July 25, 
1892, where there was a loss of 8200,000, and fifteen 
hundred persons were without food or shelter ; and 
at Fifield and Medford, July 27, 1893, the loss at 
the former place being $200,000, while the latter 



390 WISCONSIN 

(a town of eighteen hundred) was practically de- 
stroyed. A year later, July 26-30, 1894, the then 
heavily forested counties of Douglas, Bayfield, Ash- 
land, Chippewa, Price, Taylor, Marathon, and Wood 
were the scene of an extremely disastrous fire in- 
volving great loss and suffering. Phillips, the county 
seat of Price, a town of two thousand, was all but 
swept from earth (July 27), almost its entire pop- 
ulation being rendered homeless, and thirteen per- 
sons killed. Medford, in Taylor County, was again 
threatened, and only saved by great exertions ; so 
also Centralia, in Wood County. Mason, a railroad 
hamlet in Bayfield County, was destroyed, July 
29 ; and in that vicinity seventeen persons were 
killed while seeking to escape by crossing a lake. 
Help was extended from many quarters, the state 
government lending its aid in organizing the relief. 
A widespread fire occurred September 29, 1898, 
in the western half of Barron and the eastern part 
of Polk counties, wherein a half million dollars in 
property was destroyed and large numbers of set- 
tlers made homeless. There were many thrilling 
escapes on the part of men and women caught in 
the blazing woods, and even townsfolk in the centre 
of the fire belt found great difficulty in reach- 
ing refuge. The military department of the state 
government efficiently administered the work of 
relief. 

There was a disastrous drought throughout Wis- 
consin in the latter half of the summer of 1908, 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 391 

culminating in a phenomenally hot September. 
In every portion of the state much damage was 
wrought to pastures and root crops. In the dry and 
inflammable northern forests and on the cut-over 
lands a condition of extreme hazard prevailed. 
In the neighboring upper peninsula of Michigan, 
and in northeastern Minnesota, there was much 
damage from fire, the smoke from which befogged 
all of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and much 
of Illinois, and endangered navigation on Lakes 
Superior and Michigan. While in Wisconsin the 
loss was less severe than in the more northern dis- 
tricts, nevertheless about §200,000 worth of timber 
was destroyed within our bounds, both on and off 
the state reserves ; for several weeks many villages 
in Douglas, Bayfield, Sawyer, Lincoln, Oneida, 
and Oconto counties were in imminent danger of 
destruction ; and some three thousand men were 
engaged under state control in fighting fire. ^ Relief 
was brought upon September 27, when the ther- 
mometer dropped fifty degrees in a few hours, ac- 
companied by a heavy fall of rain, which latter, with 
accompanying sleet and snow, effectually placed 
the region out of danger. 

Although apparently less liable to devastating 
hurricanes than are some of the states to the west 
of the Mississippi, Wisconsin has been visited by a 

^ An engine and small fire brigade were sent on September 20 
by the city of Milwaukee to Rhinelander, the courthouse town of 
Oneida, to assist in saving the place. 



392 WISCONSIN 

few so-called " cyclones " that have wrought enor- 
mous damage. Evidences of early wind storms of 
great severity were not infrequently encountered 
in the northern woods by lumbermen. Occasionally 
were to be seen half-mile-wide paths wherein trees 
had been uprooted and the forest blasted for a dis- 
tance of fifty or sixty miles ; but as there had been 
no settlement of importance upon such devastated 
strips, small account was taken of them. 

Since record began to be kept of these terrifying 
and destructive phenomena, there have been several 
of sufficient importance to rank as historical events 
of state-wide importance. On June 28, 1865, a 
storm of this character wrecked the little city of 
Viroqua, in Vernon County, killing fourteen per- 
sons and injuring a hundred. A similar storm began 
to gather on July 4, 1873, some sixty miles west of 
Princeton, and, passing eastward through Green 
Lake, Fond du Lac, and Sheboygan counties, 
exhausted itself upon Lake Michigan. Besides the 
uprooting of trees and the destruction of farm crops 
and other property, a large number of buildings were 
shattered, especially in the cities of Fond du Lac 
and Waupun, and ten lives were lost upon Green 
Lake. The fury of the gale was felt as far south as 
Milwaukee. Hazel Green, a Grant County village, 
was wrecked on March 10, 1876, the list of dead 
being nine, of maimed fifteen, and the property 
loss f 36,000. The entire west shore of Green Bay 
was visited by a hurricane early in the evening of 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 393 

July 7, 1877 ; six lives were lost and many persons 
injured, while the damage to property amounted to 
$200,000. The village of Pensaukee, five miles 
south of Oconto, was almost a total wreck. Another 
visitation of this sort, on May 23, 1878, devastated 
the country between Mineral Point and Oregon, 
a distance of nearly forty miles. The width of the 
path averaged a half mile, and the damage amounted 
to several hundreds of thousands of dollars ; a few 
lives were lost, and several persons sustained serious 
injuries. At the same time, furious storms visited 
northern Wisconsin (particularly along Flambeau 
River) and northern Illinois. The northern and 
western outskirts of the city of Racine were razed on 
May 19, 1882, by a cyclone whose path was not over 
twenty rods in width ; five persons were killed and 
eighty-five injured. The cyclone centring at New 
Richmond, on June 12, 1899, was, however, the 
severest of all. The storm lasted less than five 
minutes ; but when it had spent its fury the little 
city lay a mass of debris, property valued at well 
nigh a million dollars had been blotted out of exist- 
ence, over fifty people were killed, and many scores 
were maimed. Fire broke out among the ruins, add- 
ing a new horror and greatly extending the finan- 
cial disaster. In the neighboring country, also, par- 
ticularly to the north, much damage was wrought ; 
Clayton, in Polk County, one of the centres of 
the great forest fire of the previous year, suffered 
severely. Again the state government skillfully 



394 WISCONSIN 

organized the work of relief, and contributions in 
money and goods poured in from all over the 
commonwealth, as well as from the neighboring 
Minnesota cities of Minneapolis, St. Paul, and 
Stillwater. On the evening of Sunday, August 
16, 1908, a severe wind storm wrecked buildings 
and crippled telegraph service at Pewaukee Lake, 
Waukesha Beach, Port Washington, and through a 
belt of country lying north of Milwaukee city limits. 
Disaster of another sort was met by those who, 
in 1885-87, invested their accumulated savings in 
iron mines that were being "boomed " on the Goge- 
bic iron range, crossing the boundary line between 
Northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of 
Michigan. Large deposits of high-grade ore had in 
the spring of 1885 been discovered between Peno- 
kee Lake and Gogebic Gap. There was at once a 
degree of excitement only rivaled by the experi- 
ences of early gold-mining camps in the Rocky 
Mountains. A hundred or more companies were 
soon selling stock at fanciful figures ; railways were 
hastily projected into the region; the towns of Hur- 
ley, Bessemer, and Ironwood, centres of the dis- 
trict, grew with mushroom speed, for 15,000 people 
were soon upon the range ; the entire country round- 
about was pitted with prospectors' shafts ; fortunes 
were made overnight by some of the first on the 
ground, and several of these speculators became 
millionaires. There seemed no limit to the possibil- 
ities, for one of the mines, the Norrie, shipped a 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 395 

million tons of ore in one season, showing that 
metal undoubtedly existed in large quantities. But, 
as usual, far more money was sunk in the majority 
of the pits than ever came out of them, and in the 
summer and autumn of 1887 there was a general 
crash; the speculative millionaires who had retained 
their holdings were again impecunious, and it was 
many years before the name of Gogebic ceased to 
be a bugaboo in thousands of deluded households. 
In due time, legitimate miners succeeded specula- 
tors, and the Gogebic still makes a goodly yield, 
although at present the Mesaba range, in northeast 
Minnesota, is a far greater producer of marketable 
ore. 

With the all-too-rapid subjugation of her forests, 
and the opening of her farthest wilderness to set- 
tlement, it might be supposed that Wisconsin 
would by this time have small concern with the 
aborigines. But as a matter of fact, few states in 
the Union now contain as many Indians. In 1904 
there were 10,520, not taking into consideration 
the civilized Brothertown and Stockbridge who 
own and work their own farms in Calumet County, 
and have been admitted to citizenship. 

It will be remembered that by various treaties 
the Winnebago surrendered all of their rights to 
soil within the present limits of Wisconsin, being as- 
signed to reservations lying west of the Mississippi. 
Nevertheless, a majority of these people remained 
in their old haunts along the water-courses leading 



396 WISCONSIN 

into the Wisconsin and the Mississippi south of 
Black River and Wausau, which is still their hab- 
itat, although to-day they chiefly dwell in Adams, 
Jackson, and Waushara counties. A considerable 
Presbyterian mission school, for the education of 
their youth, was in 1835 established at Yellow 
River, Iowa, subject to frequent inspection by the 
commandant at Fort Crawford. 

Owing to the timidity of white settlers, these 
gypsy Indians were, in the summer and autumn of 
1848, induced, under pressure of thinly-veiled 
threats, to migrate to the reservation on Long 
Prairie in Minnesota. The federal government 
provided them with steamboat transportation from 
La Crosse to St. Paul, whence they were dispatched 
in wagon caravans to Long Prairie, a leisurely 
journey of four or five days. But the Winnebago 
did not like Minnesota, neither did they relish be- 
ing placed in the neighborhood of their old and 
overbearing enemies, the Chippewa ; the majority 
therefore trailed back to Wisconsin during the fol- 
lowing winter, and resumed their former life. 

In the spring of 1851 the Winnebago were again 
a source of alarm to white pioneers north of Wis- 
consin River, who pleaded for armed removal of 
these tribesmen. Governor Dewey, w^ho did not 
share the popular fear of aborigines, sent an agent 
among the bands, who persuaded many peacefully 
to depart the state. 

In 1870 there was another " scare." The Wis- 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 397 

consin legislature represented to Congress (March 
15) that " the interests of the residents of the 
northern and northwestern parts of this state, as 
well as the interests of the stray bands of Indians 
therein, imperatively demand that the said stray 
bands of Indians be removed and located upon a 
reservation at or near the headquarters of the Eau 
Plaine River, in the northern portion of the said 
state." Congress responded (June 15) by appro- 
priating fifteen dollars per head for " the removal 
of stray bands of Pottawotomies and Winnebagoes 
in Wisconsin to the tribes to which they respect- 
ively belong." During the following autumn and 
winter, persons under contract to effect this order 
succeeded, with military assistance, in removing to 
the trans-Mississippi several hundred Winnebago, 
but in most cases with quite unnecessary harshness 
and even cruelty. But by far the greater number 
of the inoffensive barbarians evaded pursuit and 
capture. 

So insistent was the popular demand, however, 
that in May, 1872, Congress appropriated thirty- 
two thousand dollars for the further removal of the 
Winnebago, and a more wholesale deportation took 
place in the winter of 1873-74. Disgusted with 
reservation life, and pining for their old woods and 
streams, fully a half of them again returned to 
Wisconsin, where, to the number of some fifteen 
hundred, they have since been allowed to remain, 
receiving a small annuity per head from the federal 



398 WISCONSIN 

government, and being assigned to inalienable 
homesteads of forty acres for each male adult, on 
which possessions, however, but few of them as yet 
abide. The remainder of the tribe, a somewhat 
larger number, are upon the reservation in Dakota 
County, Nebraska. 

The latest Indian alarm in Wisconsin occurred 
in June, 1878. The Chippewa had been taught a 
new religious dance by a squaw visiting them from 
some reservation beyond the Mississippi,^ and in 
order to practice this large bands gathered in Bur- 
nett County. With painted faces and bedecked 
with ornaments, the tribesmen spent whole days 
and nights in noisy and somewhat feverish cere- 
monial. The whites of this then sparsely settled 
district were chiefly Norwegians and Swedes but 
lately arrived from Europe, and such unwonted 
disturbances on the part of these fiercely attired 
savages naturally gave them great uneasiness. A 
rumor spread that the Wisconsin Chippewa were 
about to join Indians west of the great river in a 
general war on the settlers. At once a wave of 
terror swept over the county, culminating on the 
eighteenth of the month. The poor frontiersmen 
fled precipitately, often without food or proper 
clothing, and took shelter in neighboring towns, 
both in Wisconsin and across the line in Minne- 
sota, chiefly at Taylors Falls and Rush City. The 

^ Possibly the " ghost dance " described by James Mooney in 
Bureau of Ethnology Report, 1892-93. 



ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 399 

adjutant-general of the state, in company with an 
officer of the federal army, at once proceeded to 
the scene of disturbance ; but, discovering that 
alarm was groundless, they gently chided the as- 
tonished dancers, and restored quiet among the 
pioneers. The officers officially recommended, how- 
ever, that hereafter the Indians be more closely 
restricted to their reservations, and forbidden to 
wander into white neighborhoods, where such pro- 
tracted dances could but arouse fear. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

SOME NOTABLE CONTESTS 

At various times within the history of the state 
there have been more or less serious proposals to 
remove the capital from Madison ; for the most 
part these have emanated from Milwaukee. In the 
legislative session of 1858, a bill to provide for 
transplanting the seat of government to that city 
had, in its preliminary stages, developed in the as- 
sembly a favorable majority of six ; but when the 
measure came upon the order of passage (May 15), 
it was lost on a tie, every member voting. In 1868 
the assembly, while in the horse-play attitude some- 
times assumed during the last days of the session, 
actually passed a bill giving the capital to Milwau- 
kee ; but on the following day (March 5) the meas- 
ure was recalled from the senate and indefinitely 
postponed. Two years later a similar project was 
killed in the assembly, after a spirited debate, by 
a vote of fifty-six to thirty. Similar attempts were 
made at intervals thereafter, particularly following 
the destruction of a large part of the statehouse by 
fire (February 27,1904), the most persistent claim- 
ant at that time being Oshkosh. But the legislat- 
ure of 1907 placed what doubtless will prove a 



SOME NOTABLE CONTESTS 401 

quietus on further efforts of this character, by 
making" provision for a new statehouseat Madison, 
to cost six millions of dollars. Further, a constitu- 
tional provision places the state university '' at 
or near'' the capital, and the investment in the 
present plant for that institution is now so large 
that suggestions for its removal are also quite im- 
probable. 

The first serious labor disturbance in Wisconsin, 
necessitating the interference of state troo^^s, oc- 
curred at Eau Claire, in September, 1881. Work- 
men in the then large and numerous sawmills at 
that place had been employed for twelve hours 
daily during the cutting season, but struck for a 
ten hours' day at the old wage. This concession 
being refused by the mill-owners, a strike ensued, 
with some rioting and destruction of property. 
Eight companies of militia were called out to keep 
the peace, and the " sawdust war," as it was deris- 
ively called, quickly ended in a victory for the 
employers. 

In the first week of May, 1886, contemporan- 
eously with the Haymarket massacre in Chicago, a 
labor riot of considerable magnitude broke out in 
Milwaukee. Some time previous, the national Fed- 
eration of Trades had adopted resolutions advising 
organizations of wao^e-earners " to so direct their 
laws that eight hours should constitute a legal 
day's work on and after May 1, 1886." The 
Knights of Labor were particularly prominent in 



402 WISCONSIN 

this movement. Their attractive slogan, "Eigl'' 
hours' work for ten hours' pay," enabled them to 
gather in their ranks large numbers of both men 
and women, especially unskilled laborers. In Mil- 
waukee, the knights had enrolled ten thousand 
members, pledged to carry out this eight-hour pro- 
gramme, and in the large lumber-manufacturing 
towns of the state the order was proportionately 
successful. In the face of what seemed to be a tidal 
wave, several Milwaukee manufacturers yielded, 
and the aldermen, influenced by great mass meet- 
ings, decreed that eight hours should thereafter 
constitute a legal day for all laborers employed by 
the city. But many large concerns, particularly 
machine shops and rolling-mills, flatly refused to 
grant the demand; strikes followed, and by the 
night of Monday, May 3, fourteen thousand men 
had ceased work. 

Upon the afternoon of that day rioting began at 
establishments where laborers had declined to go 
out. The aggressors were largely Poles, whose pas- 
sions had been played upon by Socialist leaders 
lately arrived from Europe, who advocated what 
looked suspiciously like anarchy. The wildest dis- 
order prevailed, and red flags were appearing in 
the impromptu parades incident to such a situation. 
The police being powerless to protect property or 
persons, several regiments of state troops were or- 
dered to Bay View, the centre of disturbance. On 
the following day (Tuesday), the militia responded 



SOME NOTABLE CONTESTS 403 

to ugly assaults of a mob of fifteen hundred strik- 
ers by firing into their midst, eight persons being 
killed. The riot promptly subsided, strikers quietly 
resuming work under the old conditions. But al- 
though many of the agitators were arrested and a 
few sentenced to hard labor in the house of correc- 
tion, a boycott was maintained for several months 
against both militiamen and hostile employers, and 
it was years before the effect of the uprising was 
wholly obliterated in business and social life. 

Three years later (1889) a dispute arose between 
workmen and their employers during the construc- 
tion of the Superior Air Line Railway. The labor- 
ers struck because they failed to receive their pay 
at the time stipulated ; this tardiness was the cause 
of much hardship, and considerable violence was 
manifested at West Superior. Militia were sent to 
the scene of disturbance and promptly restored or- 
der ; but popular sympathy was this time with the 
wage-earners, and Governor Rusk gave picturesque 
expression to the general sentiment when he de- 
clared, " These men need bread, not bullets ! " His 
influence was successful in compelling the company 
at once to pay their discontented employees. 

Oshkosh was the scene of a labor war during the 
summer of 1898. Differences relative to hours and 
wagres arose between thousands of wood-workers in 
that city and their bosses. In the course of the 
ensuing strike, there was the customary violence, 
with some bloodshed. Again were state troops 



404 WISCONSIN 

summoned, being encamped in the city June 
24-30, preventing further outrages ; but much bad 
blood was displayed during the fourteen weeks 
through which hostilities continued. Towards the 
close of August, a compromise was effected ; but 
the manufacturers had lost a season's trade, and 
the workmen suffered much from prolonged loss 
of pay. 

Even in territorial days the liquor question was 
prominent in Wisconsin politics, and since the or- 
ganization of the state it has not infrequently come 
to the front. It is impracticable here to mention 
more than a few of the many and diverse features 
of the anti-liquor movement. In 1850 the legislat- 
ure adopted what is known as the Bond Law, 
which provided that every retail dealer in intoxi- 
cants should execute to his city, town, or village a 
bond in the sum of a thousand dollars, conditioned 
to pay all damages that might be sustained by the 
community or individuals " by reason of his or her 
vending intoxicating liquors." Three years subse- 
quent, the people of the state voted, on referen- 
dum, in favor of a prohibitory law — ayes 25,579, 
noes 24,109 ; but the succeeding legislature de- 
clined to adopt a measure designed to carry these 
instructions into effect. The legislature of 1855 
passed such a law, but it was vetoed by Governor 
Barstow. 

The next important enactment was that known 
as the Graham Law, adopted amid much excite- 



SOME NOTABLE CONTESTS 405 

ment at the session of 1872. This act declared 
drunkenness unlawful ; dealers in intoxicants were 
made responsible for the care of intoxicated per- 
sons ; and any one, whether a relative or not, might 
in his own name sue the dealer for damages to per- 
son or property, or because of loss of support, occa- 
sioned by the intoxication of any third person. On 
his part, the dealer must execute to the community 
a bond for two thousand dollars, conditioned for 
the payment of all possible damage suits. The 
Graham Law awakened much bitterness during the 
brief period of its existence, being among the many 
causes contributory to the political upheaval of 
1873, that resulted in the triumph of Grangerism. 

The prohibition leaders were persistent, how- 
ever, and in 1878 presented to the legislature a 
petition signed by fifteen thousand persons, asking 
that the people be allowed to vote on a prohibition 
law ; but this was denied, as were also similar peti- 
tions sent up in 1879 (40,000 names), 1880, 1881, 
and 1882. The result of this long-continued effort 
was, that the minimum of the liquor license fee 
was quadrupled, and cities were allowed thereafter 
to vote once in three years on the question of rais- 
ing this fee in their own communities. At present 
there are various forms of local option, including 
one applicable to small city neighborhoods. 

At its session of 1889 the Republican legis- 
lature passed a bill introduced by Assemblyman 
Michael J. Bennett of Iowa County, and com- 



^06 WISCONSIN 

monly known as the Bennett Law, that gave rise 
to a remarkable political disturbance. The state 
educational authorities had called attention to 
the fact that fifty thousand Wisconsin children 
between the ages of seven and fourteen were not 
attending schools of any sort, and there was a 
general feeling that the laws of the state pro- 
viding for compulsory education should be made 
more effective. Bennett's bill was designed to ac- 
complish this result. 

At the time of its passage no one appears to 
Lave discovered anything revolutionary in the 
measure ; but early in 1890 a writer in a Ger- 
man Catholic paper in Milwaukee called public 
attention to certain of its provisions that were 
most unfortunately phrased. A fierce discussion 
at once arose in the press, and in several public 
meetings held for the purpose. Both Roman Cath- 
olics (chiefly Irish and Germans) and Lutherans 
(Germans and Scandinavians), having many and 
strong congregations in Wisconsin and conducting 
numerous parochial schools, academies, and col- 
leges, united in vigorous objections to two clauses 
that to them seemed designedly aimed against their 
excellent and far-reaching educational systems. 

The first of these provisions stipulated that 
"every parent or other person having under his 
control a child between the ages of 7 and 14 
years, shall annually cause such child to attend 
some public or private day school in the city. 



SOME NOTABLE CONTESTS 407 

town, or district in which he resides." Coupled 
with this were certain further regulations, fixing 
the minimum school year at twelve weeks, and 
placing upon public school boards, clothed for this 
purpose with large authority, the responsibility for 
the education of each child in the commonwealth. 
The objectors urged that under their systems, in 
which boarding schools played a large part, it was 
quite impracticable for all their children to be 
educated in the city, town, or district of each 
child's home ; that the enforcement of such a pro- 
vision would result in closing two thirds of the 
parochial schools in the country districts. While 
considering public schools necessary, they declared 
that parents had " the right to send their children 
to a better or more suitable school outside the dis- 
trict." Moreover, they said that the law " compels 
parochial and other private schools to observe the 
time or times of attendance, fixed by school boards, 
without regard to the rights or customs of churches 
or their schools. . . . The State and its officers 
have no right to interfere with the management of 
parochial or other private schools." ^ 

The second objectionable clause read ; " No school 
shall be regarded as a school under this act unless 
there shall be taught therein, as part of the ele- 
mentary education of children, reading, writing, 
arithmetic, and United States history in the Eng- 

^ Quoting- from resolutions adopted by the "Anti-Benuett State 
Convention," held at Milwaukee, June 4, 1890. 



408 WISCONSIN 

lish laDguage." This came to be regarded by both 
German and Scandinavian opponents as a thinly 
veiled attack on their native languages, which 
largely prevailed in their denominational acad- 
emies and parochial schools. The Democratic plat- 
form of 1890 declared : " To mask this tyrannical 
invasion of individual and constitutional rights, 
the shallow plea of defense of the English lan- 
guage is advanced. The history of this state, largely 
peopled by foreign-born citizens, demonstrates the 
fact that natural causes and the necessities of the 
situation are advancing the growth of the English 
language to the greatest possible extent." At a 
state convention held at Milwaukee (June 4, 1890), 
for the purpose of organizing all shades of oppo- 
sition to the law, it was resolved that while the 
delegates had " no enmity to the English lan- 
guage," they nevertheless were " opposed to all 
measures tending to oppress the immigrated cit- 
izens, or to suppress their native tongue," and 
asked " those who cherish liberty, regardless of 
party or nationality, to join us in the effort to 
have this unnecessary, unjust, and discord-breeding 
measure repealed." 

The Democratic party thus promptly espoused the 
cause of " anti-Bennettism," and skillfully rallied 
the forces bent on repeal. In their state platform 
the Republicans branded the published objections 
to the act as " gross misrepresentation," declaring 
that they had no " purpose whatever to interfere 



SOME NOTABLE CONTESTS 409 

in any manner with private and parochial schools 
supported without aid from public funds, either 
as to their terms, government, or branches to be 
taught therein ; " but on the other hand believed 
that " adequate provision should be made for the 
care of children incorrigibly truant." A general 
state election occurred in November, after a some- 
what violent campaign, and Governor William D. 
Hoard, who had signed the Bennett Law, was, to- 
gether with the entire Republican ticket, defeated. 
George W. Peck, heading the Democratic ticket, 
received 30,000 plurality. The Bennett Law was 
repealed by the next legislature, and not until 
1894 were the Eepublicans again placed in control 
of the government. 

While agitation over the Bennett Law was in its 
early stages, the state supreme court was engaged 
in hearing a protracted and learned discussion of 
the constitutionality of Bible-reading in the public 
schools of the commonwealth. In school district 
number eight of the city of Edgerton, six tax- 
payers formally objected to the fact that teachers 
read each day to the children certain portions, 
selected by themselves, of the King James (Pro- 
testant) version of the Bible ; whereas the parents 
of many of the children were Catholics, who did 
not believe that the Scriptures should be indis- 
criminately read to youth by persons not author- 
ized by the Church to expound them. They further 
contended that to select the King James to the 



410 WISCONSIN 

exclusion of the Douay (Catholic) version was 
essentially sectarian instruction ; that the reading 
of the Protestant Bible transformed the public- 
supported school into a place of sectarian wor- 
ship, with no liberty of conscience to those of other 
denominations ; and " that the practice complained 
of disturbs domestic tranquillity, and therefore does 
not promote the general welfare of our people." 

The school board having declined to interfere 
with the teachers in this matter, the circuit court 
for Rock County (Judge John R. Bennett) was 
requested by the plaintiffs to issue a mandamus 
commanding the board to cause the teachers to 
refrain. The court held that the practice was not 
unconstitutional ; whereupon the plaintiffs appealed 
to the supreme court, before which argument com- 
menced on February 1, 1890. In one aspect or 
another this question had. arisen in many of the 
states of the Union; hence the Wisconsin test 
case attracted national attention. Several attorneys 
of much ability appeared before the court, pro 
and con, and the public press bristled with articles 
on the subject. 

On March 18 the court handed down a unani- 
mous decision, written by Justice William P. Lyon, 
declaring that the reading of the Bible in public 
schools was undoubtedly sectarian instruction and 
an act of worship, thus a practice uniting the func- 
tions of Church and State, and therefore contrary 
to the inhibition of the state constitution on that 



SOME NOTABLE CONTESTS 411 

point. Justices Cassoday and Orton rendered sepa- 
rate, but confirmatory, opinions. The action of the 
court elicited strong protests from several Pro- 
testant ministerial conventions ; but in the face 
of this definitive interpretation of the constitution, 
the state department of public instruction promptly 
gave notice to boards and teachers that Bible-read- 
ing must at once cease in all public schools within 
the commonwealth. 

The constitution of the state provides that after 
N each federal or state census there shall be a fresh 
\apportionment of the senate and assembly districts ; 
'' sucb districts to be bounded by county, precinct, 
town, or ward lines, to consist of contiguous terri- 
tory, and be in as compact form as practicable." 

In the session of 1891 the new Democratic leg^is- 
lature, elected as a result of the Bennett Law 
agitation, adopted a reapportionment of the state 
based on the federal census of the preceding year. 
The Republican leaders charged that this measure 
was a particularly pernicious " gerrymander," and 
if allowed to prevail would ensure the continuous 
election of Democratic legislatures. For instance, 
it was shown that in the senatorial apportionment, 
especially, the matter of proportionate jiopulation 
cut little figure, some Democratic senate districts 
having far below the unit of representation, and 
certain Republican strongholds having far above 
this number. The Republican county of La Crosse, 
to cite but one of several like examples, was given 



412 WISCONSIN 

but one assemblyman, while Manitowoc County, a 
Democratic seat, having practically the same popu- 
lation, was awarded three. It was further shown, 
by means of maps, that many of the new districts 
did not " consist of contiguous territory " in " com- 
pact form," but were curiously shaped, and obliged 
voters to make long and unnecessary trips to reach 
their nominating conventions and polling centres. 
Action against this law was begun (February 9, 
1892) in the state supreme court by the Kepub- 
licans, nominally acting through the Democratic 
attorney-general. On March 22, the court (com- 
posed of three Democrats and two Republicans) 
unanimously decided that the apportionment act was 
unconstitutional, therefore null and void. County 
lines, the justices held, could not be divided in 
forming assembly districts, senate districts must 
be composed of convenient contiguous assembly 
districts, and there must be substantial equality 
of representation. Governor Peck called a special 
session of the legislature on June 1 to adopt a new 
apportionment that should meet the requirements 
of the court as to uniformity of population and 
contiguity of territory. The second act, approved 
July 1, was, however, almost equally distasteful to 
the Kepublicans, and they again asked the attor- 
ney-general to bring suit to vacate it. But that 
officer now declined to act, being convinced, he 
said, that the new apportionment was quite in ac- 
cord with the rules laid down by the court. After 



SOME NOTABLE CONTESTS 413 

much legal sparring, the court granted permission 
to a private person, acting in the name of the 
attorney-general, to bring such suit. Like its pre- 
decessor, the new appointment was declared im- 
proper by a majority of the court (September 
27). The legislature was again convened in special 
session (October 27), and this time adopted an 
apportionment that was not contested ; under its 
provisions the succeeding legislature was elected. 

From the earliest years, state treasurers in Wis- 
consin had personally collected interest on state 
funds deposited in the banks, and had regarded 
this as a proper perquisite of their ofBce. During 
the decade 1880-90, the treasurers thus obtained 
from twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars a year 
in addition to their legal salaries. Attacks on the 
practice began in 1882 and were repeated from 
time to time ; but as the censured officials were 
expected to subscribe liberally to campaign funds, 
and the office was regarded as a special reward for 
high political service, politicians at first paid small 
attention to criticisms of so time-honored a custom. 
The treasurers themselves justified their conduct by 
declaring that, having given heavy bonds for the 
safe-keeping of such of the state's money as came 
into their hands, it was sufficient if the actual sums 
paid to them were properly accounted for. 

When, however, the Democrats came into power 
in the first week of January, 1891, it was decided 
by the party leaders that such of the treasurers as 



414 WISCONSIN 

were not exempt under the statute of limitations 
should be prosecuted and the interest collected by 
them returned to the state treasury. Two test cases 
were brought before the circuit court for Dane 
County, which decided, after a suit attracting wide 
attention, that interest earned on the funds of the 
state belonged to the state, and should have been 
accounted for by the treasurers at the expiration 
of their several terms of office. Appeal was taken 
to the state supreme court, which handed down an 
elaborate opinion (January 10, 1893) practically 
confirming the decision of the lower court. The 
treasurers were acquitted by the court of criminal 
intent, deposits not ha\nng been made by them as 
investments ; but failure to pay over the interest 
was declared to be non-performance of all the duties 
of the office as sfuaranteed bv bondsmen. Judff- 
ments amounting to 8725,000 (including interest 
ou the sums retained^» were secured asrainst the 
treasurers and their sureties ; but subsequent legis- 
lation released some of the persons proceeded 
against, so that the net sum returned to the state 
treasury was 8373,385.95. 

From the time of the introduction of such public 
utilities, railway, telegraph, and express companies 
operating within the state fairly showered free 
passes and franks upon public officials of every 
grade, particularlj^ members of the legislature. 
There is no doubt that this practice was long an 
effectual barrier to attempts to regulate public util- 



SOME NOTABLE CONTESTS 415 

ity corporations, and not until after it was made 
illegal did the regulation policy become effective. 

Public protests against railway passes were heard 
as early as 1871, when an unsuccessful attempt was 
made to pass a bill making it a felony for a com- 
missioner or a juror in a railway damage case to 
accept such favors. Three years later the Potter 
Law contained a clause forbidding state officers, 
judges, and members of the legislature, or persons 
elected to such offices, to accept either passes or 
reduced rates ; but it will be remembered that the 
entire law was repealed in 1876. 

The agitation was renewed in 1892, and consid- 
erable effort was at that time made to arouse the 
somewhat indifferent public to an appreciation of 
what was considered by many as a serious political 
evil. Five years later the agitation was vigorously 
renewed ; but it was not until 1899, and in the face 
of persistent opposition, taking frequently the form 
of ridicule, that there was adopted an anti-pass law, 
with stringent provisions. This was supplemented at 
the ^^eneral election of November 4, 1902, bv a con- 
stitutional amendment, adopted by a large popular 
vote, providing that : " No person, association, co- 
partnership, or corporation, shall promise, offer, or 
give, for any purpose, to any political committee, 
or any member or employee thereof, to any candi- 
date for, or incumbent of any office or position 
under the constitution or laws, or any ordinance of 
any town or municipality of this State, or to any 



416 WISCONSIN 

person at the request or for the advantage of all, or 
any of them, any free pass or frank, or any privi- 
lege withheld from any person, for the traveling ac- 
commodation or transportation of any person or 
property, or the transmission of any message or 
communication." The legal authorities of the state 
have from the outset construed this mandate as in- 
cluding every manner of public official, state or lo- 
cal, whatever his grade, even janitors, school teach- 
ers, and the trustees of public libraries and schools. 
This drastic legislation had been preceded by a 
corrupt practices act (1897), one of the most 
stringent in the Union, compelling political com- 
mittees and candidates, under severe penalty, to 
file statements of campaign receipts and disburse- 
ments. An act was passed in 1905, placing the 
regulation of appointment to the civil service of 
the state in the hands of a commission of three 
members. After one of the most protracted and 
bitter political controversies in the history of any 
Western commonwealth, the Wisconsin legislature 
adopted in 1905 a sweeping primary election law, 
which was, on referendum vote, confirmed by the 
people at the succeeding general election. Under 
its provisions nominating conventions have been 
abolished, and by this means the legislature is 
informed which candidate for the United States 
Senate is approved by his party. 



CHAPTER XIX 

WISCONSIN TO-DAY 

On May 29, 1848, President Polk approved 
the act of Congfress admittiiio; Wisconsin to the 
Union. The first general officers of the new state 
took the oath of office at Madison on June 7. The 
semi-centennial anniversary of these two events, 
occurring in 1898, was made the occasion for fit- 
ting celebrations by the people of the common- 
wealth. 

As May 29 in that year fell on Sunday, and the 
30th was Memorial Day, the observance of the 
signing of the act of admission was fixed for Satur- 
day, May 28. Acting on the suggestion of the Wis- 
consin Historical Society, numerous local cere- 
monials were held on that day at county seats and 
other centres of population, these largely partaking 
of the character of pioneer reunions, at which were 
delivered reminiscent speeches and papers. Several 
local historical societies were the outgrowth of such 
meetings. 

On June 7-9 there was a three days' celebra- 
tion at Madison, the programme consisting chiefly 
of assemblies of pioneers of the territory, signers 
of the state constitution, students of Wisconsin 



418 WISCONSIN 

history, and tlie like ; at large evening meetings, 
addresses were made by distinguished citizens and 
visitors. Concerts, parades, boat races, and fire- 
works were among the popular attractions. During 
the week ending July 2, Milwaukee conducted a 
separate celebration, in which a carnival and his- 
torical pageants were the principal features, illus- 
trating the commercial and industrial advancement 
of the state since territorial days. 

While these events were in progress, Wisconsin 
was participating with her sister states in the 
Spanish-American War. On April 28, the day 
following the receipt of final orders from Wash- 
ington, three twelve-company regiments of Wis- 
consin infantry, chiefly recruited from her national 
guard, were mobilizing at Camp Harvey — the 
state fair grounds, on the outskirts of Milwaukee. 
On May 14 the Third Regiment (1353 strong, 
Colonel M. T, Moore) was forwarded to Camp 
George H. Thomas near Chattanooga, Tennessee ; 
being followed next day by the Second (1349 men. 
Colonel C. A. Born), destined for the same camp; 
while on the twentieth the First (1357 men, 
Colonel S. P. Shadel) was sent to Camp Cuba 
Libre, near Jacksonville, Florida. The Fourth 
(1301 men. Colonel H. M. Seaman) and a bat- 
tery of 109 members (Captain B. H. Dalley) were 
later added to the quota of the state, thus making 
a total Wisconsin enlistment of 5469 men. 

Although the First was the best equipped and best 



WISCONSIN TO-DAY 419 

drilled of these several commands, its colonel was 
outranked in seniority by those of the Second and 
Third, with the result that it remained inactive 
throughout the war, in camp at Jacksonville, and 
subsequently at Pablo Beach. Although asked for 
by General Lee, to serve with the proposed army 
of occupation in the West Indies, the First was 
ordered home early in September because of the 
length of its sick roll, induced by shamefully un- 
sanitary conditions at the Jacksonville camp. The 
Fourth and the battery were quartered at the state's 
permanent military reservation — Camj) Douglas, 
in Juneau County — until the close of the war, 
when the former was ordered to Anniston, Ala- 
bama, to prepare to join the army of occupation ; 
the battery, however, never left the state. 

On July 21 the Second and Third sailed from 
Charleston, South Carolina, under General Miles, 
for Porto Rico. Arriving at Ponce on the 27th and 
28th respectively, they took part in the peaceful 
capture of that place. They were thereafter in 
almost daily engagement with the enemy, having 
been with the Pennsylvania Sixteenth, with whom 
they were brigaded, selected as the advance guard 
of the army. Detachments from these Wisconsin 
regiments played a conspicuous part in General 
Roy Stone's dashing raids northward toward San 
Juan. 

Upon several occasions Wisconsin men distin- 
guished themselves : particularly at the capture 



420 WISCONSIN 

and holding of the little inland town of Yauco, a 
perilous enterprise conducted by Lieutenant Coch- 
rane of Company E of the Third, and seventeen 
of his men, all from Eau Claire; at the mountain 
fortress of Lares, where Lieutenant Bodemer of 
Sheboygan and a small detachment had a sharp 
brush with the enemy while carrying a flag of 
truce ; at Coamo, where a battalion of the Third 
was engaged ; and at the mountain pass of Aso- 
manta, — the final engagement between Spanish 
and Americans on the island, — where the Second 
was the last regiment in conflict, losing two men 
killed and two wounded, the only field casualties 
sustained by Wisconsin during the war. The total 
loss from death sustained by our regiments, almost 
wholly from camp diseases, was 131.^ The state's 
military expenses aggregated f 139,364. 49, but these 
were later refunded by the federal government. 

With the exception of the Fourth, Wisconsin 
volunteers returned to the state in September, be- 
ing first welcomed as regiments at Milwaukee, and 
later as companies in their respective towns. In 
due course they were formally mustered out of 
federal service, the majority of them rejoining the 
several militia organizations from which they had 
been recruited.^ 

1 The First lost from disease 45 ; Second, disease, 38 ; Third, 
disease, 29, killed and died from wounds, 2 ; Fourth, disease, 17. 

2 The First was mustered out October 19, 1898; Second, No- 
vember 11-21, 1898; Third, January 4-17, 1899; Fourth (at An- 
niston), February 28, 1899 ; Battery A, October 8, 1898. 



WISCONSIN TO-DAY 421 

The reader of this brief historical review of the 
region now comprising the State of Wisconsin has 
discovered that up to about 1830 the fur-trade was 
its leading industry. After that, the lead-trade 
played a considerable part in the development of 
the country ; then farming — at first wheat-rais- 
ing, but later mixed crops, live stock, and dairying 
— assumed large proportions. But with the growth 
of settlement in the West, Wisconsin's forests 
came to be exploited by lumbermen on a large 
scale, and for several decades the annual output of 
her pineries nearly equaled in value that of her 
agricultural products. So rapid of late has been 
the work of the lumbermen, however, that Wis- 
consin's timber industry is fast dropping in the 
scale, the principal operators having already with- 
drawn to the South and far Northwest ; but we still 
lead all other states in lumber and planing-mill 
products. 

The area of the state comprises some fifty-six 
thousand square miles, of which but thirty-four per 
cent is as yet improved, and the present popula- 
tion is approximately two and a quarter millions, 
a half of whom are dwellers in cities. It is com- 
puted that even with the present system of " exten- 
sive " agriculture, six and a half millions of people 
could easily be accommodated here, and the wealth 
of the state might readily be increased threefold. 
" Intensive " agriculture, in the European manner, 
would add vastly to this capacity. Conscious of the 



422 WISCONSIN 

ability of the state to sustain a far larger popula- 
tion than is found at present within our borders, 
the authorities have put forth strong efforts to 
"attract public attention to the many sources of 
wealth of the state which are not utilized or are 
practically unknown." It is thus hoped to acceler- 
ate immigration. 

The amount of capital now invested in Wiscon- 
sin's miscellaneous manufacturing establishments is 
upwards of four hundred million dollars. Ranked 
in importance according to the following order are 
lumber and timber products, and the products of 
flour and grist mills, foundries and machine shops, 
cheese factories, creameries, condensed milk facto- 
ries, leather works, breweries, iron and steel works, 
paper and wood-pulp factories, furniture facto- 
ries, and sash, door, and planing-mills. Manufact- 
uring is not concentrated in a few localities, as in 
many states, but is well distributed, and for 
materials is largely dependent upon local pro- 
ducts. Lead, copper, iron, and zinc occur abund- 
antly and are profitably mined, while the shipments 
of building stores and mineral waters are consid- 
erable. 

As there are within our bounds some two thousand 
small lakes, most of them of great purity and beauty, 
and as all portions of the state exhibit much pleas- 
ing scenery, with a climate rendered equable through 
proximity to the Great Lakes, the summer-resort 
business is assuming large proportions. The state 



WISCONSIN TO-DAY 423 

is to its great profit much frequented by sportsmen 
during the fishing and hunting seasons. Fishing as 
an industry is also lucrative, the state's annual pro- 
ducts on the Great Lakes alone being valued at 
nearly $300,000, while there are also extensive in- 
land fisheries that advance the total to considerably 
over half a million dollars. A State Fish Commis- 
sion effectively controls these interests, and annu- 
ally restocks the lakes and rivers. 

Wisconsin's geographical position, already shown 
to have played a large part in her history, is still of 
great importance in the marketing of her exports. 
The products of her forests, farms, factories, mills, 
mines, and quarries are readily shipped to the East 
from ports on lakes Michigan and Superior. On 
the west, the Mississippi has, since the war, carried 
but a relatively small freightage, because of railway 
competition ; but its possibilities are still great, and 
potent forces are at work that must inevitably 
cause the great river and its leading tributaries in 
time to regain some measure of their former eco- 
nomic importance. The railways of the state now 
show a trackage of somewhat over seven thousand 
miles, fairly meeting the needs of nearly every sec- 
tion ; and interurban electric systems are fast push- 
ing into the most populous districts in the eastern 
and southern counties. There is also a promising 
field for the greater utilization of the state's water- 
powers, for manufacturing, transportation, and light- 
ing purposes. 



424 WISCONSIN 

The commonwealth makes ample provision for 
the education of its youth. During the year 1906 
the aggregate disbursements for common schools 
amounted to 18,982,992, for normal schools 1372,- 
572, for the state university 11,022,548, and for 
other forms of popular instruction (teachers' insti- 
tutes, day schools for the deaf, manual training 
departments, agricultural schools, and county train- 
ing schools for teachers) §175,559 — a magnificent 
total of il0,553,571. In the same year there were 
371,929 children between seven and fourteen years 
of age (limits of compulsory attendance), of whom 
62.2 per cent were enrolled in the public schools of 
the state and 16.2 per cent in private schools, while 
21.6 per cent did not attend any school. There 
were 7731 schoolhouses in the state, with a seating 
capacity of 569,169. Seven state normal schools 
(at Platteville, established in 1866 ; Whitewater, 
1868 ; Oshkosh, 1870 ; River Falls, 1875 ; Milwau- 
kee, 1885 ; Stevens Point, 1894 ; and Superior, 
1896) give instruction to four thousand pupils. In 
1908 there were two hundred and sixty-five free 
and fourteen independent high schools, with a total 
enrollment of 21,453. 

The system of popular education in district, ward, 
high, and normal schools is fittingly crowned by 
the University of Wisconsin at Madison, founded, 
we have seen, in pioneer days. This institution, 
which at present has over four thousand students, 
of both sexes, is supported by the income from 



WISCONSIN TO-DAY 425 

five distinct federal land grants/ by state taxation, 
and in part by private gift. At present the uni- 
versity receives the product of an annual tax of two 
sevenths of a mill on each dollar of the assessed 
valuation of the state, besides specific legislative 
appropriations. Gifts have chiefly come in the form 
of foundations for certain chairs, fellowships, and 
scholarships.^ 

The university consists of colleges of letters and 
science, engineering, law, agriculture, and medi- 
cine, besides a largely-patronized graduate school, 
and fast- developing departments of university ex- 
tension and correspondence study. The university 
extension division offers lecture courses in all parts 
of the state, to women's clubs, study clubs, home 
study groups, and teachers' conventions and insti- 
tutes ; it also aims to assist debating societies and 
all manner of local educational activities. The 
correspondence study department, now on a well- 
established basis, offering a large variety of courses, 
endeavors " to give every man a chance to get the 

^ The basic two-township grant, 1848 ; supplementary two- 
township grant, 1854 ; Morrill grant for the support of studies 
pertaining to agriculture and mechanic arts, 1862 ; Hatch grant 
for support of agricultural experiment stations, 1887 ; and sup- 
plementary Morrill grant, 1890. 

^ The most important of these benefactions are thus far the 
bequests of Charles Kendall Adams and William Freeman Vilas ; 
the former is already operative in part, but the latter (which it is 
hoped may eventually reach thirty millions of dollars) is not yet 
available. 



426 WISCONSIN 

highest education possible at the smallest practical 
cost, to bring the university and the home in close 
touch." In short, the university, as at present or- 
ganized, seeks to be " the centre of every movement 
that concerns the interest of the state." The widely- 
extended system of farmers' institutes, held simul- 
taneously at many points in the state, and of short 
agricultural courses given at Madison to both youth 
and adults, is an exceptionally popular branch of 
university instruction, and has already immensely 
benefited Wisconsin agriculture ; indeed, the col- 
lege of agriculture and the state experiment station 
in connection therewith, have won national reputa- 
tion for breadth of view and administrative skill. 
The effect of some of the station's practical experi- 
ments has been to revolutionize the dairy business 
of the entire world. 

The principal Protestant denominational col- 
leges in Wisconsin are at Milton (Seventh Day 
Baptist, established 1844), Waukesha (Carroll 
College, Presbyterian, 1846), Beloit (Congrega- 
tional, 1846), Appleton (Lawrence University, 
Methodist, 1847), Ripon (Congregational, 1853), 
Watertown (Northwestern University, Lutheran, 
1865), and Milwaukee (Concordia College, Lu- 
theran, 1881). Milwaukee-Downer, an unsecta- 
rian college for women, at Milwaukee, is on the 
joint foundations of Milwaukee College (founded 
1848) and Downer College (Congregational and 
Presbyterian, 1853). The Roman Catholics sup- 



WISCONSIN TO-DAY 427 

port Ste. Clara's Academy (Dominican, 1847) at 
Sinsinawa Mound, St. Francis Seminary (1853) 
at St. Francis, St. Lawrence College (Capuchin, 
1861) at Mount Calvary, Marquette University 
(Jesuit, 1864) at Milwaukee, and Pio Nono Col- 
lege (normal, 1871), besides several efficient insti- 
tutions of lesser rank. 

Since the Wisconsin Library Commission was 
organized in 1896, the public library movement in 
the state has had a remarkable development. Free 
municipal libraries, supported by local taxation, 
are now established in a hundred and fifty com- 
munities — over half of them owning their own 
buildings or being comfortably established in city 
halls ; there are, in addition, several owing their 
support to individuals, associations, and school 
boards. The commission circulates nearly seven 
hundred well-selected traveling libraries in those 
sections as yet too sparsely settled to purchase 
their own book collections. It also conducts an 
advisory service, for giving assistance and advice 
of every sort to such public libraries as are in need 
thereof ; an instructional service, which includes a 
school for library training, the conduct of library 
institutes in various parts of the state, and prac- 
tical instruction on the spot in the organization and 
conduct of small libraries ; a legislative reference 
library (in conjunction with the State Historical 
Library) for gathering and classifying material 
bearing on current questions of public moment and 



428 WISCONSIN 

subjects of pending legislation, for the use of mem- 
bers of the legislature, state officers, citizens, and 
students of public affairs ; and a document and 
magazine clearing house for the benefit of local 
libraries. 

In this connection should be mentioned the well- 
known library of the State Historical Society, at 
Madison. This institution, founded by members of 
the first state legislature (January 30, 1849), has 
long been the most industrious and successful agency 
west of the Appalachians, for gathering and publish- 
ing material bearing upon American history, more 
especially that of the West and South. Its well- 
selected reference library, comprising more than 
300,000 books and pamphlets, and occupying one 
of the most beautiful and best-equipped of Ameri- 
can library buildings, is a favorite workshop for 
scholars, while its publications rank with those of 
similar societies in Massachusetts and Pennsylva- 
nia. Within the society's building are also housed 
the fast-growing libraries of the state university 
and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and 
Letters. The excellent law library of the state is 
maintained at the capitol. 

The penal and charitable institutions of Wis- 
consin are managed by the State Board of Con- 
trol. There are state insane hospitals at Mendota 
(near Madison) and Winnebago (near Oshkosh) ; 
a School for the Blind at Janesville ; a Workshop 
for the Blind at Milwaukee : a School for the 



WISCONSIN TO-DAY 429 

Deaf at Delavan ; an Industrial School for Boys 
(reformatory) at Waukesha ; a Home for the 
Feeble-Minded at Chippewa Falls ; a School for 
Dependent Children at Sparta ; a State Prison at 
Waupun ; a State Reformatory at Green Bay ; 
and a Tuberculosis Sanatorium at Wales — these 
several institutions costing the state, for current 
expenses alone, about half a million dollars annu- 
ally. The incurable insane are cared for in county 
asylums supported by both the state and the county. 
The Wisconsin Veterans' Home, at Waupaca, while 
managed by the Wisconsin department of the 
Grand Army of the Republic, is liberally aided by 
the state. The National Soldiers' Home at Mil- 
waukee is of course supported and managed by 
the federal government. The Industrial School 
for Girls (reformatory) at Milwaukee is partly 
under state control. There are also in Wisconsin 
many orphan asylums, hospitals, homes for the 
aged, and other private benevolent institutions, for 
the most part under ecclesiastical management ; 
when specially incorporated, they are regularly in- 
spected and reported on by the Board of Control — 
but the number thus incorporated is but a small 
proportion of those in existence. 

Despite the wholesale and often wasteful lum- 
bering operations of the past decades, there still 
remain in Wisconsin some large tracts of forest, 
chiefly hardwoods. A State Board of Forestry was 
authorized in 1905, and a technically trained state 



430 WISCONSIN 

forester, who is also state fire warden, is now em- 
ployed in a systematic attempt to prevent forest fires 
and acquire forest reserves. Over three hundred 
local fire wardens have been appointed in the north- 
ern counties. As sixty per cent of forest fires are 
caused by carelessness of settlers in clearing land 
and burning for pasture, it is hoped gradually to 
eliminate this factor. Thus far, the several reserves 
include 234,000 acres in northern Wisconsin ; but 
in the immediate future it is hoped very largely 
to increase this area, from gifts of cut-over pin- 
ery lands, the sale of certain state lands, and re- 
ceipts from the sale of forest products emanating 
from the reserves. The board expects incident- 
ally to assist in diminishing disastrous floods 
along the Mississippi and to conserve valuable 
water-powers. 

Reference has already been made to the work of 
the State Railway (public utilities) Commission, 
the Tax Commission, the Board of Assessment, the 
Board of Control, the Library Commission, the 
Commissioners of Fisheries, the Civil Service Com- 
mission, the Board of Forestry, and the State 
Historical Society, which last is practically a com- 
mission. The Bureau of Labor and Industrial 
Statistics, State Banking Department (essentially 
a commission). Diary and Food Commission, Board 
of Agriculture, Geological and Natural History 
Survey, Board of Examiners for Admission to the 
Bar, Boards of Dental, Medical, and Veterinary 



WISCONSIN TO-DAY 431 

Examiners, Board of Health and Vital Statistics, 
Live Stock, Sanitary Board, Board of Pharmacy, 
Tuberculosis Commission, Grain and Warehouse 
Commission, Board of Arbitration and Concilia- 
tion, and Board of Immigration — to make merely 
a selection from the list — are all of them useful 
agencies of state administration, and suggest the 
great breadth and complexity of the practical prob- 
lems affectins: a modern American commonwealth. 
Two recently created commissions are of peculiar 
interest : The Wisconsin History Commission, 
which seeks to collect and disseminate information 
concerning Wisconsin's part in the War of Secession ; 
and the State Park Board, whose object is to select 
and report on park sites that, from considerations 
either of beauty or of historic association, should 
become the property of the state. 

Sixty years ago, when Wisconsin entered the 
Union, it was relatively a crude community. It has 
slowly but surely advanced to the front rank of 
trans-Appalachian states. Fertile, healthful, and 
beautiful, with vast natural resources as yet but 
slightly drawn upon, it has come to be recognized 
as among the most energetic, enterprising, and pros- 
perous of American commonwealths — perhaps 
most markedly enterprising in the matters of popu- 
lar education and the science of government. Much 
of its material success is owing to favorable geo- 
graphical position, and to abundant products of 



432 WISCONSIN 

earth and water ; but quite as great is the intellect- 
ual debt Wisconsin owes to her cosmopolitan pop- 
ulation that has brought to her service the best of 
many lands. Both intellectually and materially, she 
faces none but pleasing prospects. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abercrombie, Gen. John J., bri- 
gade, 342. 

Acadia, Recollects in, 19; Lahon- 
tan, 83. 

Accau, Michel, explores Missis- 
sippi, 68, 69; met by Duluth, 74. 

Adair, James, traveler, 129. 

Adams, Charles K., benefaction, 
425. 

Adams, John, peace commissioner, 
142; diplomatic agent, 158. 

Adams, Pres. John Q,, pardons 
Indians, 213. 

Adams County, foreign popula- 
tion, 293 ; Indians, 396. 

Agriculture, in Wisconsin, 421; 
developed by lead roads, 297; 
affected by transportation rates, 
298, 299; Southern shipments, 
371-376; Eastern shipments, 297, 
375,377,378; advance of tillage, 
377, 378 ; commission, 430. 

Alabama, in War of Secession, 
330, 366. 

Albanel, Charles, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 49. 

Albany (N. Y.), fur-trade, 75, 88, 
107, 122, 130, 371 ; Carver at, 125. 

Albemarle, Confederate ram, 366. 

Albemarle Sound, action in, 366. 

Alexandria (La.), fleet at, 361. 

Algonkin Indians, discover cop- 
per, 11, 12, 15; attack Iroquois, 
9; Nicolet with, 13-15, 23; de- 
scribe Winnebago, 16, 17. 

Algonquian Indians, habitat, 17, 
18 ; Foxes a branch, 90 ; curiosity 
about Winnebago, 29. 

Allen, Col. Thomas S., commands 
Fifth Wisconsin, 356. 

Allouez,Claude, Jesuit missionary, 
46-49,51, 103; with Saint-Lusson, 
62 ; meets Foxes, 90 ; reports cop- 
per deposits, 123. 



American Fur Company, in Wis- 
consin, 181; agent, 168; methods, 
194-198. 

American Historical Review, 129. 

American State Papers, 192. 

Americans, first in Wisconsin, v, 
Vi, 155, 163, 164, 168, 170-173, 179- 
198; at [Mackinac, 160, 161, 169, 
178. 

Amherst, Gen. Jeffrey, British 
commander-in-chief, 118. 

Anderson, Thomas G., in War of 
1812-15, 174, 176. 

Andersonville (Ga.), Confederate 
prison, 360. 

Andr(§, Louis, Jesuit missionary, 
48, 49. 

Ange, Augustin, pioneer, 127. 

Annapolis Royal (N. S.). See Port 
Royal. 

Anniston (Ala.), in Spanish-Amer- 
ican War, 419. 

Antaya, Pierre, pioneer, 127. 

Appleton, Lawrence University, 
426. 

Appomattox Court House (Va.), 
Lee's surrender at, 365. 

Argenson, Pierre de Voyer, vi- 
comte d', governor of New 
France, 41. 

Arkansas, in War of Secession, 366. 

Arkansas Indians, Jolliet and 
Marquette with, 56; La Salle, 71. 

Army of Potomac, at South Moun- 
tain, 349; campaign of 1863, 355, 
356. 

Arndt, Charles C. P., killed, 261. 

Arnold, Jonathan E., counsel for 
Barstow, 309. 

Ashland County, swept by fire, 
390. 

Asomanta Pass (P. R.), Wisconsin 
men at, 420. 

Assenisipia, proposed state, 152. 



436 



INDEX 



Assiniboin Indians, Duluth with, 

74. 
Astor, John Jacob, in fur-trade, 

168-171, 182, 195. 
Astoria (Ore.), built, 171. 
Atkinson, Gen, Henry, in Winne- 
bago War, 210, 211; in Black 

Hawk War, 225. 
Atlanta (Ga.), campaign, 363, 364, 

366. 
Atwood, Gen. David, journalist, 

312. 
Augel, Antoine, with Accau, 68, 

69, 75. 

Bailev, Lieut.-Col. Joseph, en- 
gineering feat, 361-363. 

Baird, Henry S., at Green Bay, 190, 
257; attorney-general, 240; can- 
didate for governor, 308. 

Baird, Mrs. Henry S., Early Days 
on Mackinac Island, 185. 

Baker, , sheriff, 261. 

Balfour, Capt. Henry, takes upper 
posts, 106, 107, 120. 

Baltimore (Md.), riot at, 333. 

Banks, Gen. Nathaniel P., Red 
River expedition, 361-363. 

Banks, in territorial Wisconsin, 
282-285, 287; wildcat, 338, 339; 
circulation, 338 ; number in 1861, 
338; suspension, 338; Southern 
bonds discredited, 338, 339; state 
department, 430. 

Baptists, in Wisconsin, 255, 426. 

Barron County, in Carver's claim, 
128; swept by fire, 390. 

Barstow, Gov. William A., polit- 
ical career, 306-312; Bashford 
controversy, 308-312; "and the 
balance," 307; veto, 404. 

Barth, Laurent, at Portage, 166, 
167. 

Bashford, Gov. Coles, Barstow 
controversy, 308-312 ; accused of 
bribe-taking, 303. 

Basques, in Newfoundland, 1. 

Baton Rouge (La.), captured by 
Spanish, 137. 

Battery A, in Spanish-American 
War, 418-420. 

Battles : Altoona Pass, 364 ; Antie- 



tam, 349; Asomanta Pass, 420; 
Bad Axe, 226; Bethesda Church, 
363; Bull Run, 342, 348; Carrion 
Crow Bayou, 360 ; Cedar Mount- 
ain, 349; Chancellorsville, 355; 
Chaplin Hills, 350; Chattanooga, 
359; Chickamauga, 359, 366; Co- 
amo, 420; Corinth, 349, 350; Dal- 
ton, 364; Fair Oaks, 363; Falhng 
Waters, 342; Fitzhugh's Cross- 
ing, 355; Fredericksburg, 351, 
355 ; Gainesville, 348 ; Gettysburg, 
357, 358, 369; Hatcher's Run, 363; 
Helena (Ark.), 357; Henry Hill, 
342; Jericho Bridge, 363; Kene- 
saw Mountain, 364; Leggitt's 
Hill, 364; Marye's Hill, 355, 356, 
359; Mission Ridge, 359; Paint 
Rock, 350 ; Peachtree Creek, 364 ; 
Peckatonica, 224 ; Petersburg, 
363; Pittsburg Landing, 344; 
Prairie Grove (Ark.), 350, 366; 
Resaca, 364 ; Sabine Cross Roads, 
361; Shiloh, 347; South Mount- 
ain, 348; Spottsylvania, 363; 
Stillman's Creek, 223-225; 
Stone's River, 351 ; Tippecanoe, 
171; Turner's Gap, 349; Vicks- 
burg, 356; Warrenton, 359; Wil- 
liamsburg, 347, 348; Wisconsin 
Heights, 225, 226. 
Bayfield, railroads, 302. 
Bayfield County, swept by fire, 390, 

391. 
Bay View (Milwaukee), riots at- 

402, 403. 
Bays: 
Chequamegon, as a district, 108, 
road to, 251; in Fox Wars, 94; 
Jesuit mission, 46, 47; Radis- 
son on, 42, 43; Le Sueur, 77; 
Beaubassin, 124; English trad- 
ers, 121, 122; settled, 122-124, 
153, 167, 168; early history, 167, 
168. See also La Pointe. 
Georgian, Champlain on, 9; 
trade route, 15; Nicolet on, 14, 
15,23, 24, 26; Jesuits, 20, 45. 
Green, described, 27; islands, 
269, 293; Winnebago on, 17; 
Nicolet, 26-33 ; Allouez, 47, 48 ; 
Marquette and Jolliet, 54, 56; 



INDEX 



437 



La Salle, 67; Lahontan,81, 82; 
Mathurin's death, 98; fur- 
trade, 31, 67; lumbering, 281^ 
great fire, 389 ; wind storm, 392, 
393; boundary, 272. See also 
Green Bay (town). 

Hudson, Radisson on, 41, 44; 
fur-trade, 88, 146, 147. 

Matagorda, La Salle on, 72-74. 

Maumee, acquired by Ohio, 271. 

Passamaquoddy, Champlain on, 
2. 

Sturgeon, Marquette on, 56, 58. 

White Fish, Nicolet on, 25. 
Bear, clan totem, 109. 
Beaubassin, Hertel de, at Che- 

quamegon, 124. 
Beauharnois, Charles de la 

Boische, marquis de, governor 

of Canada, 120. 
Beaujeu. See Villemonde. 
Beauregard, Gen. G. T., at Bull 

Run, 342. 
Beaver, in fur-trade, 79, 93, 95 ; as 

food, 30. 
Belgians, in Wisconsin, 292, 293, 

354. 
Belle Isle, Confederate prison, 360. 
Belleview, desires capital, 241. 
Belmont, first capital, 240, 241, 253; 

Express, 240 ; Gazette, 254. 
Beloit, early settlers, 293; road to, 

251; military companies, 333. 
Beloit College, founded, 426. 
Bennett, John R., circuit judge, 

410. 
Bennett, Michael J., introduces 

bill, 405. 
Bennett Law, political effect of, 

405-409. 
Berdan sharpshooters, Wisconsin 

men in, 347. 
Bering, Vitus, discoveries, 3. 
Berlin, Indian village site, 31, 47, 

51, 55; river channel, 279; Booth 

in, 324. 
Bessemer (Mich.), in Gogebic 

" boom," 394. 
Bible reading, in public schools, 

409-411. 
Big Knives, Indian term for 

Americans, 112. 



Bill Cross rapids, Menard at, 46. 

Biloxi (Miss.), founded, 79; Le 
Sueur at, 80. 

Bird, Augustus A., builds capitol, 
244, 245. 

Black Hawk, Sauk leader, 219, 220 ; 
characterized, 222, 228 ; declares 
war, 221, 222; attempts surren- 
der, 223, 226, 227 ; wins battle, 223, 
224 ; pursued, 225, 226 ; captured, 
223, 227, 228. 

Black River Falls, sawmill, 282. 

Blue Mounds, road via, 250; Peck 
at, 244. 

Bodemer, Lieut. , in Porto 

Rico, 420. 

Bohemians, in Wisconsin, 292, 293. 

Boilvin, Nicholas, Indian agent, 
172, 173, 200. 

Bond Law, for liquor licenses, 404. 

Boone, Daniel, Wilderness Road, 
246. 

Boonesborough (Md.), army at, 
349. 

Booth, Sherman M., in Glover 
case, 320-325, 327. 

Born, Col. C. A., in Spanish-Amer- 
ican War, 418. 

Bostonnais, French - Canadian 
term for Americans, 134, 150, 340. 

Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de, 
on Green Bay, 99, 100. 

Bourne, E. G., Travels of Jona- 
than Carver, 129. 

Bovay, Alvin E., names Republi- 
can party, 308. 

Bowyer, Col. John, Indian agent, 
180. 

Braddock, Gen. Edward, defeated, 
119. 

Brebeuf , Jean de, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 21-23. 

Bretons, in Newfoundland, 1. See 
also French. 

Brisbois, Michel, in War of 1812-15, 
172, 182. 

British, claims, 85, 86, 88; popula- 
tion of colonies, 12, 13; Indian 
allies, 149-151, 183; fur-trade, 10, 
75-77, 88, 92, 130, 371, 372 ; served 
by Radisson, 38, 44; declare war, 
171, 172; attack French, 2, 12, 15, 



438 



INDEX 



19, 78, 83; trans-AUeghany ex- 
ploration, 88; government de- 
lays, 88, 89; at St. Josephs, 70; 
Mackinac, 105; in French and 
Indian War, 98, 101; withdraw 
from St. Lawrence, 82; possess 
Wisconsin, v, vii, 177-179; dis- 
sension, 86; forts, 207; retain 
posts, 144, 145, 154, 158; sur- 
render posts, 160; miners, 199. 

Brothertown Indians, migrate to 
Wisconsin, 213, 216, 231 ; as farm- 
ers, 395. 

Brown, Beriah, journalist, 258. 

Brown County, established, 188- 
190; seat, 234; ungoverned, 237; 
represented by Arndt, 261 ; taxes, 
279; foreign groups, 293; swept 
by fire, 388, 389. 

Bruce, William, fur-trader, 107, 
116. 

Brunson, Alfred, pioneer, 259. 

Buchanan, Pres. James, pardons 
Booth, 324; retirement, 331. 

Buffalo, clan totem, 109 ; skins in 
fur-trade, 63, 66, 71. 

Buffalo (N. Y.), emigration port, 
247; lake port, 267,297. 

Buffalo County, in Carver's claim, 
128; foreign groups, 293. 

Bulger, Capt. Andrew H., at 
Prairie du Chien, 177, 178. 

Burlington, settlement, 264, 265. 

Burlington (Iowa), Wisconsin 
legislature at, 243. 

Burnett, Thomas P., lawyer, 258. 

Burns, John, at Gettysburg, 358. 

Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 
Discovery of Northwest, 21, 
32 

Cadillac, Antoine la Mothe, 
sieur de, commandant at De- 
troit, 92; governor of Louisiana, 
156. 

Cadotte, Jean Baptists, fur-trader, 
122, 134, 167. 

Cadotte, Michel, at Chequamegon, 
167, 168. 

Cahawba, Confederate prison, 360. 

Cahokia (111.), French settlement, 
153; in Revolution, 139, 141. 



California, gold mines, 300 ; pro- 
hibition of slavery, 317, 318. 

Calumet, road to, 251. 

Calumet County, New York Indi- 
ans in, 216, 231, 395. 

Calv^, Joseph, partisan leader, 
138. 

Cameron, Simon, secretary of 
war, 336. 

Camp Cuba Libre, in Spanish- 
American War, 418, 419. 

Camp Douglas, military reserva- 
tion, 419. 

Camp Harvey, in Spanish-Ameri- 
can War, 418. 

Camp Lawton, Confederate 
prison, 360. 

Camp Randall, Wisconsin troops 
at, 337; Confederate prisoners, 
346. 

Camp Sorghum, Confederate 
prison, 360. 

Camp Thomas, Wisconsin troops 
at, 418. 

Campbell, John, justice and 
Indian agent, 164, 173. 

Canada, ceded to Great Britain, 
108 ; on " underground railway," 
319, 321; Canadians in Wiscon- 
sin, 292, 294, 340. See also British 
and New France. 

Canals: land grants in Wiscon- 
sin, 377. 

Erie, as a Wisconsin trade out- 
let, 247, 295, 297, 372, 373. 
Fox-Wisconsin, projected, 277- 
279. See also Rivers : Fox and 
Wisconsin. 
Illinois, 298, 373. 
Milwaukee and Rock River, 276- 

279, 296, 373. 
Northern, 246. 

Canoes, dug-outs, 16, 18. 

Capuchins, in Wisconsin, 427. 

Carolinas, migration from, 246; 
Sherman in, 365. 

Carpenter, Matthew H., counsel 
for Barstow, 309. 

Carpenter, S. D., journalist, 258. 

Carroll College, established, 426. 

Carron, , Green Bay teacher, 

187. 



INDEX 



439 



Cartier, Jacques, at Montreal, 2. 

Carver, Jonathan, in Wisconsin, 
125-129, 166; notes mines, 156, 
157; land claim, 128,129; Travels, 
128, 129. 

Cass, Lewis, governor of Michi- 
gan, 188; treaty commissioner, 
205; visits Wisconsin, 242. 

Cassoday, John B., supreme court 
justice, 411. 

Cassvilie, desires capital, 241. 

Catholics, found New France, 2; 
missionary exploration, 8; in 
Wisconsin, 254, 255, 426, 427; op- 
pose Bennett Law, 406; oppose 
Bible reading in schools, 409-411 ; 
educational institutions, 426. 
427. See also French and Jesu- 
its. 

Cattle, raised in Wisconsin, 374. 

Cedar Point, treaty at, 230. 

Census, in Wisconsin, 411. 

Central Freedmen's Aid Society, 
345. 

Centralia, destroyed by fire, 390. 

Ceresco, settlement, 262, 263. 

Champlain, Samuel de, governor 
of New France, 1-3 ; founds Que- 
bec, 1-3, 5 ; explorations, 8-10, 12, 
13, 23, 34, 35, 51; introduces mis- 
sionaries, 18, 19 ; hears of copper 
mines, 11, 12; manages trade 
monopoly, 15 ; interested in Win- 
nebago, 16, 17; dispatches Nico- 
let, 85; deatli, 34; Voyages, 11. 

Chapman, William W., district 
attorney, 240. 

Chardon, Jean Baptiste, Jesuit 
missionary, 49,254, 255. 

Charles II (England), patronizes 
Radisson, 38. 

Charleston (S. C), harbor, 332, 419. 

Charlevoix, Pierre Francois Xav- 
ier de, in Wisconsin, 95 ; Journal 
Historique, 78, 129. 

Chattanooga (Tenn.), advance 
from, 363 ; camp near, 418. 

Chersonesus, proposed state, 152. 

Chicago, location, 271 ; portage, 7, 
56, 58, 59, 92; routes to, 185,186, 
250, 251; as Indian boundary, 230; 
treaty at, 230; in Revolution, 



138; in War of 1812-15, 173; mail 
routes, 254; Milwaukee bank 
notes paid at, 285; trade devel- 
opment, 247, 295, 298, 379 ; labor 
troubles, 401. 

Chicago and Northwestern Rail- 
road Co., early building, 301, 302; 
opposes Potter Law, 383-385. 

Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul 
Railroad Co., early building, 
301, 302; opposes Potter Law, 
383-585. 

Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du 
Lac Railroad Co., aided by 
Watertown, 380, 381. 

Chickasaw Indians, leagued with 
Foxes, 94. 

Childs, Ebenezer, pioneer, 257. 

Chippewa County, in Carver's 
claim, 128; swept by fire, 390. 

Chippewa Falls, home for feeble- 
minded, 429. 

Chippewa Indians, 109, 124; hab- 
itat, 140, 167, 193, 194; Nicolet 
with, 24, 25; Radisson, 41, 42; in- 
tertribal wars, 91, 124, 204, 205, 
396; desire war, 222; allies of 
Pontiac, 115; with Tecumseh, 
171; in Revolution, 134, 137; in 
War of 1812-15, 174; rendezvous, 
121; council, 211; restive, 354, 
355; frighten settlers, 398, 399; 
treaties with, 183, 184, 199, 220, 
230. 231. 

Chippewa Territory, proposed, 
232, 233. 

Cincinnati, early settlement, 153; 
trade, 295, 374. 

City of Four Lakes, aspirant for 
capital, 241. 

City of Second Lake, aspirant for 
capital, 241. 

Civil service, in Wisconsin, 416, 
430. 

Clark, George Rogers, in Revolu- 
tion, 134, 135, 139, 159, 172. 

Clark, Julius T., journalist, 258. 

Clark, William, exploration, 95; 
governor of Missouri, 172, 177, 
205. 

Clark County, in Carver's claim, 
128. 



440 



INDEX 



Clarksville (Ind.), settlement, 153, 

Clayton, wind storm, 393, 394. 

Clermont, Alexis, Narrative, 185. 

Cleveland, lake port, 268; Western 
governors at, 335, 336. 

Coamo (P. R.), Wisconsin men at, 
420. 

Cobb, Amasa, member of Con- 
gress, 328. 

Cochrane, Lieut. , in Spanish- 
American War, 420. 

Cole, Orsamus, supreme court 
justice, 309, 324. 

Columbia County, foreign groups, 
294. 

Columbus, railroads, 302. 

Communism, in Wisconsin, 261- 
269. 

Company of the Hundred Associ- 
ates, trade monopoly, 35 ; founds 
Three Rivers, 21 ; employs Nico- 
let, 15. 

Concordia College, founded, 426. 

Confederacy, Davis president, 331; 
military prisons, 346. See also 
Wars : Secession. 

Congregationalists, in Wisconsin, 
255; colleges, 426. 

Congress, memorial to, 299; land 
grants to railroads, 302; land 
grants to university, 314-317, 
424, 425; nullification address to, 
323; Wisconsin members, 328. 

Connecticut, cedes Northwest, 
151. 

Copper, early reports of, 11, 12; on 
Lake Superior, 11, 12, 52, 78, 86, 
123, 124, 298, 300 ; in Wisconsin, 
386. 

Cornish, in Wisconsin, 203, 294. 

Cornstalk, Shawnee chief, 113. 

Coureurs de bois, defined, 35, 36; 
life, 104; explorations, 35-37, 41- 
44,48. 

Courts, established in Wisconsin, 
188-191 ; Bashford-Barstow case, 
309-311 ; fugitive slave law, 322- 
325 ; railway regulation, 384, 385, 
387; Bible reading in school, 409- 
411; apportionment, 412, 413; 
interest on treasury funds, 413, 
414; federal, 321-324. 



Control, Hubert, commandant at 

Green Bay, 99, 100. 
Coutuine de Paris, at Green Bay, 

189. 
Crawford, William H., secretary 

of treasury, 182. 
Crawford County, organized, 188- 

190, 237; taxes, 279; divided, 234. 
Creek Indians, trade with Eng- 
lish, 88. 
Creeks: Apple, 201; Duck, 216; 

French, 6; Stillman's, 223-225. 
Crooks, Ramsay, trader, 170, 171. 
Crown Point (N.Y.), Mathurin at, 

98. 
Crozat, Anthony, monopoly, 156. 
Gulp's Hill, Union charge, 358. 
Cumberland Gap, pioneer route, 

246. 
Gushing, W. B., naval exploit, 

366, 367. 
Cyclones. See Hurricanes. 

Dablon, Claude, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 50, 51, 57, 58 ; with Saint-Lus- 
son, 63; reports copper, 123. 

Dakota, sought by Wisconsin 
farmers, 386. 

Dakota Indians, linguistic stock, 
17; cast out Winnebago, 17, 18, 
29. 

Dane County, circuit court, 414; 
sheriff, 311 ; foreigners, 293. 

Danes, in Wisconsin, 293. 

Daniel, Antoine, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 21-23. 

Danville, Confederate prison, 360. 

Davis, Jefferson, in Black Hawk 
War, 222; in Wisconsin, 331; 
captured, 366. 

Davost, Ambroise, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 21-23. 

Death's Door, origin of term, 26, 
54; Nicolet at, 27,28. 

De Baugis, Chevalier, succeeds La 
Salle, 71, 72. 

De Bow's Review, 298. 

De Brouillon, Jacques Fran9ois 
de, governor of Plaisance, 83. 

De Corah, , French soldier, 126. 

De Gonnor, Nicolas, Jesuit mis- 
sionary, 95. 



INDEX 



441 



Delafield, Gushing from, 366. 

De Lassay, Marquis de, French 
soldier, 75. 

Delavan, school for deaf, 428. 

Democratic party, opposed to first 
constitution, 276; opposes ap- 
propriations, 286 ; state conven- 
tion, 353; supports Union, 332; 
gerrymander case, 411-413; op- 
poses Bennett Law, 408, 409 ; at- 
tacks state treasurers, 413, 414; 
defeated, 329. 

Democratic-Liberal Reform party, 
railway regulation by, 383-385. 

Denis. See La Ronde. 

Denonville, Jacques Rene de Bri- 
say, marquis de, reports English 
claims, 88. 

De Pere, origin of name, 47; Je- 
suit mission 47^9, 54, 56, 59, 64, 
70, 76, 91, 94; early settlement, 
102,103; sawmill, 281. 

De Peyster, Col. Arent Schuyler, 
at Mackinac, 134. 

Des Moines County (Iowa), unor- 
ganized, 237. 

De Soto, Fernando, discovers 
Mississippi, 59, 60. 

Detroit, established, 92, 153; Du- 
luth near, 76; Fox wars, 95; Pon- 
tiac's conspiracy, 113; threat- 
ened, 135; surrendered to Brit- 
ish, 106; transferred to United 
States, 144; capital of Michigan, 
232, 279, 286; land claims com- 
mission at, 192; lake port, 146, 
148,247,268; mail, 186; courts, 
190; banking, 285. 

Dewey, Nelson, first state gover- 
nor, 287, 288, 290, 305; removes 
Winnebago, 396. 

Dickens, Charles, American 
Notes, 261. 

Dickinson, William, pioneer, 257. 

Dickson, Robert, in War of 1812-15, 
173, 174. 

Dixon (111.), location, 271. 

Dixon, Luther S., supreme court 
justice, 324. 

Dodge, Maj. Henry, in Black 
Hawk War, 225 ; territorial gov- 
ernor, 239, 261, 272, 285,286; de- 



sires new territory, 283 ; slavery 
attitude, 318; prominence, 258, 
372. 

Dodge County, foreign groups, 
294. 

Dominicans, in Wisconsin, 426. 

Doolittle, James R., member of 
Congress, 328. 

Door County, foreign groups, 269, 
293; swept by fire, 388, 389. 

Doty, James Duane, comes to Wis- 
consin, 190, 192; owns Madison, 
241, 242; territorial governor, 
261, 272-275, 285; desires new ter- 
ritory, 232, 233 ; prominence, 257, 
372; Docket-Book, 192. 

Douglas, Stephen A., on import- 
ance of Mississippi, 375; debate 
with Howe, 328. 

Douglas County, foreign groups, 
293; swept by fire, 390, 391. 

Dousman, Hercules L., pioneer, 
259. 

Drake, George, soldier, 342. 

Duane, James, member of Con- 
gress, 151. 

Dubuque, Julien, miner, 157, 158. 

Dubuque (Iowa), early lead mines, 
156, 157; desires Wisconsin cap- 
ital, 241; road to, 251; bank, 241. 

Dubuque and Belmont Railroad 
Co., chartered, 301. 

Dubuque County (Iowa), unorgan- 
ized, 237. 

Du Charme, Jean Marie, partisan 
leader, 138. 

Duluth, Daniel Greysolon, explo- 
rations, 69, 74-77, 86; trade 
routes, 78, 91; forts, 81, 85; at De 
Pere, 103; eulogized by Vau- 
dreuil, 77. 

Duluth (Minn.), location, 275. 

Dunn, Charles, lawyer, 258; terri- 
torial judge, 240. 

Dunn County, in Carver's claim, 
128. 

Durrie, Daniel S., Jonathan Car- 
ver, 129. 

Dutch, trade with Iroquois, 10; in 
Wisconsin, 292, 293. 

Dutchman's Point (on Lake Chani* 
plain), fort, 144. 



442 



INDEX 



Eagle, clan totem, 109. 

Eagle Regiment. See Eighth Wis- 
consin. 

East Florida, province organized, 
117. 

Eastman, Ben. C, pioneer, 259, 260. 

Eau Claire, strike at, 401 ; soldiers 
from, 361, 420. 

Eau Claire County, in Carver's 
grant, 128. 

Ecuyer, Jean, at Portage, 166. 

Edgerton, Bible reading case, 409. 

Education, early grants for, 314- 
317; in Northwest, 153; first in 
Wisconsin, 186, 187; funds mis- 
managed, 308; Bennett Law agi- 
tation, 406-409; Bible-reading 
case, 409-411 ; statistics, 326, 423, 
424. See also the several locali- 
ties. 

Eighteenth Wisconsin Infantry, 
at Shiloh, 347; Corinth, 349; 
Chattanooga, 359. 

Eighth Wisconsin Infantry, at Co- 
rinth, 349, 350; on Red River ex- 
pedition, 361; at Nashville, 364; 
Stone's River, 351. 

Eldridge, Charles A., member of 
Congress, 328. 

Eleventh Wisconsin infantry, at 
Vicksburg, 356. 

Elgin (111.), location, 271. 

Elk, clan totem, 109. 

English. See British. 

Enjalran, Jean, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 49. 

Eokoros Indians, mentioned by 
Lahontan, 82. 

Episcopalians, in Wisconsin, 255; 
missions, 214, 215, 252. 

Erie (Pa.), portage, 6. 

Esanapes Indians, mentioned by 
Lahontan, 82, 

Ethrington, Capt. George, in Pon- 
tiac's conspiracy, 114-116, 120. 

Evanston (111.), location, 271. 

Ewell, Gen. R. S. , at Gettysburg, 
358. 

Fairchild, Lucius, governor, 368, 
369; on railway regulation, 381, 
382. 



Falls of St. Anthony, visited, 
201 ; Accau at, 69 ; Le Sueur, 77, 
79. 

Fay, , Wisconsin trader, 136. 

Federation of trades, at Milwau- 
kee, 401, 402. 

Felicity, early lake vessel, 136. 

Fifield, injured by fire, 389. 

Fifteenth Wisconsin infantry, at 
Paint Rock, 350; Stone's River, 
351; Chickamauga, 359; Scandi- 
navians in, 340. 

Fifth Wisconsin Battery, at Cor- 
inth, 350; Stone's River, 351. 

Fifth Wisconsin Infantry, in Pe- 
ninsula Campaign, 347, 348; at 
Antietam, 349; Marye's Hill, 355, 
356, 359 ; Warrenton, 359. 

Fillmore, John S., journalist, 257. 

Finances, during war period, 337- 
340. 

Finlanders, in Wisconsin, 293. 

First Alabama regiment, prison- 
ers, 346. 

First Wisconsin Cavalry, serv- 
ices, 365, 366. 

First Wisconsin Infantry, in war, 
334; ill-equipped, 334; at Falling 
Waters, 342; Chaplin Hills, 350; 
Stone's River, 351; Chicka- 
mauga, 359; in Spanisli-Ameri- 
can War, 418. 

Fish, Carl Russell, Economic 
History of Wisconsin, 339, 375. 

Fisher, Henry Monroe, magis- 
trate, 164. 

Fisheries, in Wisconsin, 422, 423 
commission, 423, 430. 

Florence, Confederate prison, 360 

Florence County, foreign groups 
294. 

Florida, claimed by French, 15 
secession ordinance, 330. 

Flower, Frank A., History of lie 
publican Party, 308. 

Fond du Lac, desires capital, 241 
early road, 251; railroad, 301, 
302; in war, 333, 337; injured by 
fire, 388; wind storm, 392. 

Fond du Lac County, foreign 
groups, 293; wind storm, 392. 

Forest fires, 387-39], 429, 430. 



INDEX 



443 



Forest Hill Cemetery (Madison), 

Confederates in, 346. 
Forsyth, Maj. Thomas, Indian 

agent, 201. 
Forts : early at Green Bay, 94. 

Beauharnois, constructed, 95. 

Chartres, French post, 113. 

Crawford, built, 182, 281; road 
to, 251; schools, 252; in Win- 
nebago War, 205-207; in Black 
Hawk War, 226, 227; Winne- 
bago mission near, 396. 

Crevecoeur, built, 68. 

Edward Augustus, at Green 
Bay, 107, 111, 114, 115, 126, 166. 

Erie, transferred, 144. 

Frontenac, established, 66; sup- 
plies, 68; Duluth at, 69; re- 
stored to La Salle, 72. 

Howard, built, 180, 181 ; road to, 
251 ; schools, 252 ; amusements, 
185, 186; commandants, 210, 
331. 

Kaministiquia, location, 76. 

Le Boeuf, captured, 113. 

Mackinac. See Mackinac. 

McKay, occupied by British, 
176, 177, 182. See also Fort 
Shelby and Prairie du Chien. 

Miami, location, 70; French at, 
96; captured, 106, 113. 

Niagara, British post, 113. 

Nicolas, location, 64. 

Ouiatanon, captured, 113. 

Perrot, location, 64. 

Pitt, in Pontiac's conspiracy, 
113. 

Presqu'isle, captured, 113. 

Prince of Wales, fur-trade post, 
147. 

St. Joseph (near Detroit), La- 
hontan at, 81. 

St. Josephs (Ind.), French at, 
72, 96; captured by Indians, 
113; attacked by Spanish, 140- 
142. 

St. Louis (Matagorda Bay), 
founded by La Salle, 73 ; Span- 
ish at, 74 

St. Louis (Starved Rock), Tonty 
at, 70; restored to La Salle, 72. 

Sandusky, captured, 113. 



Shelby, built, 172 ; besieged, 173- 

178. 
Snelling, in Winnebago War, 

206, 210. 
Sumter, surrender, 332, 338, 367. 
Tyler, battle near, 366. 
Yenango, captured, 113. 
Wayne, settlement, 153. 
Willian Henry, siege, 119. 
Winnebago, built, 167, 213, 281; 
road to, 251; schools, 252; 
Twiggs at, 331 ; Indian disturb- 
ance, 239. 

Fortress Monroe, Black Hawk at, 
228. 

Forty-fifth Wisconsin Infantry, 
Germans in, 340. 

Fourier, Charles, social theorist, 
262. 

Fourteenth Wisconsin Infantry, 
at Shiloh, 347; Corinth, 349; 
Vicksburg, 356, 357; on Red 
River expedition, 361; losses, 
357. 

Fourth Michigan Cavalry, cap- 
tures Davis, 366. 

Fourth Wisconsin Cavalry, serv- 
ices, 361, 366. 

Fourth Wisconsin Infantry, or- 
ganized, 336; at Port Hudson, 
357; Bailey's exploit, 361. 

Fox, W. F., Regimental Losses in 
American Civil War, 343. 

Fox Indians, character, 90 ; habi- 
tat, 90, 194; control Fox River, 
90; village, 126; wigwams, 109; 
intertribal wars, 90, 204; Allouez 
with, 48; Beaujeu, 106; mine 
lead, 157, 158, 199-201, 203, 204; 
war with French, 49, 64, 78, 85- 
101, 104, 119; in Pontiac's upris- 
ing, 114; Revolution, 135-139; 
Tecumseh's uprising, 171 ; treat- 
ies, 182-184; agent, 164. 

Fox Lake, road, 251. 

Fox- Wisconsin route, 149, 166, 170- 
172, 185, 295; improvement, 274, 
277-279. 

Franch^re, Gabriel, Narrative, 
171. 

Franciscan mission, 108. See also 
Recollects. 



444 



INDEX 



Frank family, at Green Bay, 163. 

Franklin, Benjamin, peace com- 
missioner, 142. 

Franklin, Gen. William B., engi- 
neer, 362. 

Frazer, William C, territorial 
judge, 240. 

Frederick (Md.), secession legis- 
lature at, 343. 

Frederick County (Md.), fur- 
trade, 115. 

Freeport (111.), location, 271. 

French, occupy New France, 1-3, 
5, 10, 371; characterized, 193; 
frontiers, 8, 62, 63, 80, 102 ; explo- 
rations, 9, 10, 34-37, 62 ; mission- 
aries, 18, 19 (see also Catholics, 
Jesuits, and Recollects); popu- 
lation, 12, 13, 86; exploration of 
West, 62-84 ; hated by Iroquois, 
9,81; weakness, 86; Hennepin's 
account, 68, 69, 72; war with 
England, 12,78; education, 252 ; 
marriage, 190, 191; fur-trade, 7, 
75, 80, 86-88, 90, 146, 162, 200; Fox 
Wars, 49, 64, 78, 85-101, 104, 119; 
posts, 64, 70, 76 (see also Forts) ; 
intrigues, 125, 159; seek mines, 
80, 155, 156, 199; settlers in Wis- 
consin, 130-133, 172, 177, 181, 249, 
294; regime in Wisconsin, v-vii, 
8, 87, 94, 102-104, 127, 179; down- 
fall of New France, 85, 108, 150, 
156 ; connections with Louisiana, 
86, 87, 89; cedes Louisiana, 108, 
169, 170; elsewhere in Northwest, 
108, 153; treaty with Winnebago, 
31, 32; with United States, 142, 
143. See also Fur-trade 

Frontenac, Louis de Baude, comte 
de, governor of New France, 
53, 77, 78, 82; fur-trade agents, 
69; relations with La Salle, 65, 
66, 71 ; superseded by La Barre, 
71; death. 91. 

Fur-trade, Indian adaptability to, 
12; on St. Lawrence, 10, 16, 36, 
37, 41, 43, 45, 58; trade routes, 5- 
8, 26, 78, 279 ; French operations 
generally, vi, 2, 14, 21, 22, 35, 65, 
79, 86-88, 91-95; English and 
Dutch, 10, 75-77, 88, 130, 132, 145- 



149, 154, 199; Americans, 168-171, 
179, 180, 282, 194, 195, 198; import- 
ance of lead, 80; prices, 75; 
articles of traffic, 64 ; measures 
to secure trade, 117, 118; compe- 
tition, 145-147, 168; stations, 64, 
66, 67, 70, 76; fair dealing, 110; 
beaver, 79; buffalo, 63, 66, 71; on 
Illinois River, 71 ; Fox River, 
103, 104, 107; Lake Superior, 121, 
122; in Wisconsin, 02-64, 109, 110, 
371, 372, 421 ; elsewhere in North- 
west, 77-80; companies, 131, 132, 
146, 147; free traders, 87, 88; 
character of traders, 87, 88. See 
also Coureurs des bois, and the 
several traders and companies. 

Gagnier, Registre, murdered, 209, 
211. 

Galena (111.), location, 138, 271; 
lead-trade, 64, 79, 156, 158, 200, 
202, 295, 372, 373. 

Galvez, Don Bernardo, governor 
of Louisiana, 136, 137, 142. 

Garland, Benammi W., Glover's 
master, 319. 

Gautier, Charles, de Verville, par- 
tisan leader, 134, 136. 

Gaylord, Gen. Augustus, services, 
346, 347. 

Geneva, road, 251. 

Georgia, in War of Secession, 330, 
359, 366. 

Germans, migration to Wiscon- 
sin, vi, 288-292, 339, 340; in Wis- 
consin regiment, 340; oppose 
Bennett Law, 406, 408; journal- 
ist, 406. 

Gerrymander, of legislative dis- 
tricts, 411-413. 

Giard, Basil, pioneer, 127. 

Giasson, Jacques, fur-trader, 100. 

Gibbon, Gen. John, commands 
Iron Brigade, 359. 

Glory of Morning, Winnebago 
chieftess, 126. 

Glover, Joshua, fugitive slave, 
319-325, 327. 

Gnacsitares Indians, mentioned 
by Lahontan, 82. 

Goddard, , fur-trader, 106. 



INDEX 



445 



Gogebic Gap, iron deposits, 394. 

Gogebic iron range, speculation 
on, 394, 395. 

Goldsboro(N. C), Sherman at, 365. 

Gorrell, Lieut. James, at Green 
Bay, 106-116, 178; departure, 
115, 116, 126; Journal, 107, 109, 
164, 166. 

Gosselin, Abb6 Auguste, Jean 
Nicolet, 21. 

Graham Law, against liquor sell- 
ing, 404, 405. 

Grand Army of the Republic, in 
Wisconsin, 429. 

Grand Butte des Morts, council 
at, 211. 

Grand Portage (Lake Superior), 
in fur-trade, 146-148. 

Grangers, railway regulation by, 
383-386, 405. 

Grant, Gen. U. S., praises Wiscon- 
sin troops, 347; Richmond cam- 
paign, 363, 365. 

Grant County, Vineyard from, 
261; lead, 296; Z^em^d, 280, 298. 

Greeley, Horace, editor, 262; 
praises Wisconsin troops, 349, 
356, 357. 

Green Bay (town), location, 108 ; 
native mart, 12; early French 
name, 18; on trade route, 7; de- 
scribed, 181, 185-187; a district, 
108; fur-trade, 162,168,279,372; 
Duluth at, 76 ; in Fox wars, 85- 
101; in Pontiac's conspiracy, 
114, 115; visited by Indians, 110; 
English regime,106, 107, 116; Car- 
ver at, 126: Pond, 130; early set- 
tlement, 102, 103, 120, 121, 127, 
163, 167, 173, 257; arrival of 
Americans, v, vi, 162, 180, 181 ; 
in War of 1812-15, 173, 174; forts, 
122, 164, 166, 180, 184, 281 ; com- 
mandants, 124, 180; population, 
163; growth, 133; schools, 186, 
187, 231, 252, 253; land claims, 
191-193, 232; council at, 216; 
county seat, 188, 190, 234, 242; 
land ofBce, 231; churches, 254, 
255; bank, 241, 243; Protestant 
mission, 214; coming of New 
York Indians, 215; militia, 226; 



entrepot, 194, 195, 201, 247, 250, 
251, 258 ; territorial legislature 
at, 238, 299; desires capital, 241- 
243; opposes extension of terri- 
tory, 273; taxes, 280; early news- 
papers, 253, 254; state reform- 
atory, 429. 

Green County, foreign groups, 
293. 

Green Lake, road, 251. 

Green Lake County, Nicolet in, 
31 ; wind storm, 392. 

Greensand, Le Sueur's cargo, 80. 

Griffon, La Salle's vessel, 67, 103. 

Grignon, Augustin, at Portage, 
167; Recollections, 166. 

Grignon, Louis, in War of 1812-15, 
173. 

Grignon, Pierre, fur-trader, 133, 
186, 195. 

Grignon family, pioneers, 163. 

Groseilliers, Medard Chouart, 
sieur des, explorations in Wis- 
consin, 37-45, 47, 51, 54, 62, 63, 
122, 155. 

Grosse Pointe, boundary, 230. 

Guignas, Michel, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 95. 

Gulfs: 
Mexico, drainage system, 7; as 
a boundary, 72; Spain on, 142; 
mentioned by Marquette, 50, 
55; Wisconsin trade outlet, 
298, 372. 
St. Lawrence, drainage system, 
7. 

Habitans, characteristics, v, 104, 
132-134, 154, 179-181, 184, 186, 187, 
190, 191. 

Haldimand, Gen. Frederick, gov- 
ernor of Canada, 137, 144. 

Hamilton, William S., pioneer, 
258. 

Hammond, M. B., Financial His- 
tory of Wisconsin Territory, 
277. 

Hancock, Maj. John, at Shiloh, 
347. 

Hancock, Gen. Winfield S., brig- 
ade, 347; at Spottsylvania, 363; 
praises Wisconsin officer, 359. 



446 



INDEX 



Harnden, Lieut.-Col. Henry, cap- 
tures Davis, 366. 

Harrison, William Henry, gover- 
nor of Northwest Territory, 163. 

Harte, Bret, Gettysburg poem, 358. 

Harvey, Gov. Louis P., services, 
344, 346. 

Harvey, Mrs. L. P., services, 344, 
345. 

Harvey Hospital, at Madison, 346. 

Haskell, Frank A., describes Get- 
tysburg battle, 358, 359. 

Hatch land grant, to state uni- 
versity, 425. 

Hebberd, S. S., Wisco7isin under 
the Dominion of France, 21. 

Helena (Ark.), battle, 357. 

Helena (Wis.), desires capital, 241. 

Hennepin, Louis, Franciscan mis- 
sionary, explorations, 68, 69, 72, 
75, 77, 86; map, 156; Travels,12, 
129. 

Henry, Alexander, fur-trader, 121, 
122, 124, 146, 167. 

Henry IV (France), founds New 
France, 2. 

Herculaneum (Mo.), shot-tower, 
200. 

Herron, Gen. Francis J., praises 
Wisconsin troops, 351. 

Hesse, Capt. Emanuel, partisan 
leader, 138, 139. 

Hoard, Gov. William D., defeated, 
409. 

Hobart, Col. H. C, escapes from 
prison, 360. 

Hocquart, Gilles, intendant of 
Canada, 120. 

Holt, Benjamin, journalist, 258. 

Holton, Edward D., defeated by 
Barstow, 308. 

Hood, Gen. John B., at Nashville, 
364. 

Horicon, military company from, 
333. 

Horner, John Scott, acting gov- 
ernor, 237-239. 

Howard, Gen. Benjamin, name- 
giver for Fort Howard, 181. 

Howe, Timothy O , counsel for 
Bashf ord, 309 ; member of Con- 
gress, 328. 



Hubbell, Levi, impeachment of, 
313, 314. 

Hubert, Ignace, fur-trader, 100. 

Hudson, boundary, 143. 

Hudson, Hendrik, discoveries, 4. 

Hudson's Bay Company, organ- 
ized, 44; trade operations, 76, 
146, 147. 

Hunt, Thomas, founds commun- 
ity, 263. 

Hunt, Wilson P., fur-trader, 170, 
171. 

Huntsville (Ala.), battle near, 350. 

Hurley, in Gogebic "boom," 394. 

Huron Indians, Nicolet with, 21- 
25, 30, 33, 34; Radisson, 41-43, 
45; Jesuits, 20, 46; raided by 
Iroquois, 20; driven from La 
Pointe, 50 ; trade with English, 
88. 

Huron Territory, proposed, 233- 
235. 

Hurricanes, in Wisconsin, 391-394. 

Hutchins, Ensign Thomas, at 
Green Bay, 110, 111. 

Hyer, George, journalist, 258. 

Iberville, Pierre le Moyne, 
sieur d', founds Louisiana, 79, 

86. 

Icelanders, in Wisconsin, 27, 293. 

Illinoia, proposed state, 152. 

Illinois, French in, 56, 58, 59, 72, 
87, 91, 92, 95, 96, 98, 108; lead-min- 
ing, 79,80, 155-158, 199-204, 299; 
migration to, 229, 247 ; migration 
from, 202, 247, 248; Indian ces- 
sion, 183; in Revolution, 105, 134, 
137-139 ; territory organized, 163, 
164, 188; state created, 188; 
boundaries, 233, 235, 250, 251, 
270-275; Indian title quenched, 
231; quota in war, 336; militia, 
221, 223-225; Mormons, 264,265; 
debts, 290; forest fire smoke, 
391; wind storm, 393. 

Illinois Indians, 204, 219, 222, 227; 
habitat, 68; French allies, 94; 
Marquette with, 68 ; trade with 
Winnebago, 18. 

Immigration, to Wisconsin, 288- 
294, 339, 340; land grants as bait 



INDEX 



447 



315, 316 ; checked by war, 339, 340; 
immigrants as soldiers, 341; in 
1870, 340; through Milwaukee, 
377; in trans-Mississippi, 379, 
386; hoard, 431. See also the sev- 
eral nationalities. 

Indiana, portages, 6, 7; bounda- 
ries, 240, 270, 271; Indian trou- 
bles, 171; French settlements, 
153; Spanish invasion, 140; terri- 
tory, 163, 164, 187, 188; emigra- 
tion to, 247; debts, 290. 

Indians, characterized, 112; clans, 
109 ; language, 26, 65, 81 ; primi- 
tive industries, 196; democracy, 
112; customs, 109; slavery, 109; 
war methods, 206, 207, 212; geo- 
graphical knowledge, 10, 11; 
trails, 203; dissemination of 
news, 30; ghost dance, 398, 399; 
intertribal relations, 150, 154; 
French seek, 5; in fur-trade, 2, 
62-64, 87-89, 196-198; receive fire- 
arms, 155; unreliable allies, 87; 
Perrot with, 63, 64; Duluth, 74; 
Lahontan, 82; Jesuits, 86; at 
French settlements, 105; revolt, 
341; land cessions, 182-184; 
among Wisconsin troops, 340; 
frighten settlers, 395-398 ; popu- 
lation, 109, 395. See also the sev- 
eral tribes. 

Iowa, climate, 222 ; Indians, 98, 204, 
207, 224; lead-mining, 155-158, 
200; railroad development, 379. 

Iowa City (Iowa), fire, 228 

Iowa County, seat, 234; unorgan- 
ized, 237; representative, 405. 

Irish, in Wisconsin, 292, 294; 
troops in war, 340; oppose Ben- 
nett Law, 406. 

Iron Brigade, in Shenandoah Val- 
ley, 348,349; at Fredericksburg, 
351 ; in Virginia, 355 ; at Gettys- 
burg, 357, 358; in Wilderness, 
363; losses, 358 ; commander, 359, 
360. 

Iron, in Wisconsin, 386; Gogebic 
"boom," 394, 395. 

Iron River, injured by fire, 389. 

Ironwood (Mich.), in Gogebic 
"boom," 394. 



Iroquois Indians, language, 214; 

confederacy, 215 ; visited by Ni- 

colet, 14; war with French, 9, 10, 

70, 76, 81-83 ; attack native ene- 
mies, 10, 20, 22, 41, 42, 47, 90; be- 
friend Foxes, 96. 
Irvin, David, territorial judge, 

240. 
Irving, Washington, Astoria, 147, 

171. 
Irwin, Maj. Matthew, at Green 

Bay, 180, 181. 
Islands : 

Allumette, Nicolet on, 13, 14, 23. 

Apostle, in Chequamegon Bay, 
42. 

Bahamas, threatened, 137. 

Big Beaver, Mormon colony, 
266-269. 

Bois Blanc, 234. 

Cockburn, Nicolet at, 24. 

Doty's, Indian village, 126, 131. 

Drummond, Nicolet at, 24; fort 
on, 180. 

Garlic, Indian rendezvous, 173. 

Grand Manitoulin, Nicolet at, 
24. 

Jamaica, threatened, 137. 

La Cloche, Nicolet at, 24. 

Mackinac, 234; military occupa- 
tion, 107, 108; post, 163; settled, 
153. See also Mackinac. 

Madelaine, venerated by In- 
dians, 42; fur-trade, ^77, 122; 
settled, 168. 

Manitoulin, Ottawa on, 50. 

Mount Desert, Jesuits at, 20. 

Number Ten, captured, 346. 

Poverty, Nicolet at, 27. 

Rock (Green Bay), Nicolet at, 27. 

St. Croix, Champlain at, 2. 

St. Joseph's, Nicolet at, 24; fort, 
160. 

St. Martin, Nicolet at, 27. 

Summer, Nicolet at, 27. 

Washington, Nicolet at, 27; for- 
eign group, 293. 

West Indies, trade, 145. 
Italians, in Wisconsin, 293, 294. 

Jackson, Pres. Andrew, appoint- 
ments, 237-239. 



448 



INDEX 



Jackson, Mortimer M., lawyer 

258. 

Jackson (Mich.), Republican 
party organized at, 308. 

Jackson, Gen. Thomas J. (Stone- 
wall), at Chancellorsville, 355. 

Jackson County, in Carver's 
claim, 128; Indians in, 396. 

Jacksonville (Fla.), camp near, 
418, 419. 

Jacrot, , Wisconsin trader, 

173. 

Jamestown (Va.), miners at, 80. 

Janesville, road to, 251, 296; rail- 
road, 301 ; school for blind, 428. 

Jay, John, peace commissioner, 
142 ; secures treaty, 160. 

Jefferson, Thomas, secretary of 
state, 144-146, 148 ; drafts ordin- 
ance, 151, 152. 

Jefferson Barracks, 223, 228 ; sol- 
diers from, 210. 

Jesuits, as explorers, 37, 53, 66; 
at Quebec, 49, 50, 52; found 
Three Rivers, 21; at Sault Ste. 
Marie, 10, 24, 25; in Wisconsin, 
427 ; on Fox River, 95 ; at Green 
Bay, 104; Nicolet with, 21-23; 
interested in Radisson, 44', 45; 
missionaries, 62, 65; inception 
of work, 18-20; missions, 46-49, 
86,108, 114, 254; Chequamegon, 
47, 49, 50, 122, i255; De Fere, 56- 
59, 64, 70, 91, 94; Lake Superior, 
45, 46; Mackinac, 50-54; St. 
Francis Xavier, 47, 54, 56-58; St. 
Ignace, 50, 54, 59 ; Belations, 14, 
15, 20, 22, 26-28, 30-33, 37-41, 50, 51, 
54, 57, 58, 62. See also the sev- 
eral missionaries and missions. 

Johns Hopkins University Stud- 
ies, 198. 

Johnson, Col. James, lead-miner, 
201, 202. 

Johnson, John W., at Prairie du 
Chien, 182. 

Johnson, Thomas S., Green Bay 
teacher, 187. 

Johnson, Sir William, superin- 
tendent of India-ns, 110. 

Johnston, Gen. Albert Sidney, at 
Bull Run, 342. 



Johnston, Gen. Joseph E., sur- 
renders, 365. 

Joinville, Prince de, in Wiscon- 
sin, 218. 

Jolliet, Louis, discovers Missis- 
sippi, 40, 52-57; loses diary, 57, 
58; value of discovery, 59-61, 
66 ; explorations, 62, 77, 86 ; limit 
of, 71. 

Joutel, Henri, journal, 156. 

Juneau, Solomon, pioneer, 165. 

Juneau County, military reserva- 
tion, 419. 

Kaskaskia, settlement, 153; 

Clark at, 135. 
Kaukauna, road, 250; church, 255. 
Keith, Sir William, governor of 

Pennsylvania, 88. 
Kellogg, Gen. John Azor, Capture 

and Escape, 360. 
Kellogg, Louise Phelps, aid ac- 
knowledged, viii ; Fox Indians 

during Fre?ich -Regime, 98. 
Kenosha (Southport), Fourierism 

at, 262; road, 251; schools, 253; 

rivals Milwaukee, 243; troops 

in war, 333. 
Kentucky settlements, 134, 135, 

159; restlessness in, 148, 14^; 

migration from, 201, 202. 
Keokuk, Fox chief, 220, 228. 
Kewaunee, trading-post, 165. 
Kewaunee County,foreign groups, 

293 ; swept by fire, 389. 
Keweenaw Point, Radisson at, 42; 

Menard, 45, 46. 
Kiala, Fox chief, 97. 
Kickapoo Indians, habitat, 109; 

on Fox River, 100. 
Kilboum, Byron, pioneer, 257. 
King, Rufus, journalist, 257, 
King Philip, uprising, 113. 
Kingston (Ont.), location, 66, 143. 
Knights of Labor, at Milwaukee, 

401, 402. 
Knowlton, James H., counsel for 

Bashford, 309. 
Koshkonong, desires capital, 241. 

La Barrb, Le Fevre de, governor 
of New France, 71, 72. 



INDEX 



449 



La Baye. See Green Bay (town). 

Labor troubles, 401-404. 

L' Arbre Croche , Indian mission, 

108; English prisoners, 114. 
La Chine Rapids, 57. 
La Crosse, "Winnebago in, 396; 
railroad to, 373; freiglit ton- 
nage, 375. 
La Crosse and Milwaukee Rail- 
road Co., history, 302-304. 
La Crosse County, in gerryman- 
der, 411. 
Lafayette (Ind.), location, 113. 
Lafayette County, territorial leg- 
islature in, 240; lead, 296. 
La Fontaine Railroad Co., chart- 
ered, 301. 
Lahontan, Louis-Armand de Lorn 
d'Arce, baron de, explorations, 
80-84; account inaccurate, 82- 
84 ; Voyages to North America, 
83, 84, 129, 155. 
Lakes : 
Champlain, Champlain on, 9; 

post, 144. 
Chautauqua, portage, 6. 
Chetak, post on, 195. 
Court Oreilles, post on, 195. 
Erie, discovered, 9, 10; portage 
system, 6 ; route, 130 ; post on, 
81, 144; boundary, 143. 
Flambeau, post on, 195. 
Four, named, 243; road, 245. 
Great, territory of, 117; Indians 
on, 204; French exploitation, 
34; portage system, 5-8; trade 
route, 85, 88, 89 ; necessary to 
French, 89, 90; cheap trans- 
portation, 297; Wisconsin's 
relation to, 371-377. See also 
the several lakes. 
Great Slave, 146. 
Green, wind storm, 392. 
Huron, boundary, 143, 147; In- 
dians on, 76, 112; Iroquois, 42 
Ottawa, 50; discovered, 9, 10 
12; mistaken for Michigan, 32 
Jesuits on, 20; Nicolet, 23-25 
Radisson, 38, 39; Champlain 
51; British, 106; route, 130 
fort on, 81. 
Kegonsa (First), named, 243. 



Koshkonong, Indians on, 224 
225. 

Mendota (Fourth), named, 243 
245. 

Michigan, 32, 48, 49, 107, 143, 154 
islands, 266; Green Bay, a part 
of, 102; portages, 6, 7, 56 
boundary, 161, 163, 178, 183 
186, 188, 190, 199, 201, 221, 222 
225, 232, 233, 237, 238, 243, 254 
270, 271; Indians on, 67, 114 
194, 222, 230; as a route, 108 
116, 130, 298; Nicolet on, 10 
25, 26; Radisson, 38, 39; Mar- 
quette and Jolliet, 54, 58, 59 
Tonty, 70; La Salle, 67, 68, 70- 
72; Lahontan, 82; St. Cosme 
91,92; fur-trade, 179; in Fox 
wars, 96; British on, 106, 107 
settlements, 132, 133; naviga 
tion, 136, 185; steamer, 215 
ports, 274 ; canals, 90, 276, 373 
outlet for Wisconsin trade 
372-377, 423; roads from, 245 
251, 274, 296, 301; fogged with 
smoke, 391 ; wind storm, 392. 

Mille Lacs, portages, 8. 

Monona (Third), named, 243. 

Nemakagon, post on, 195. 

Nepigon, Duluth's fort on, 76. 

Nipissing, Champlain on, 9; 
Nicolet, 14, 23; Recollects, 19; 
trade route, 15. 

Ontario, discovered, 10; Fort 
Frontenac on, 66; boundary, 
143. 

Otsego, boundary, 143. 

Penokee, iron deposits, 394. 

Peoria, Illinois Indians on, 68; 
La Salle and Tonty, 68. 

Pepin, French on, 64, 77, 95. 

Petit Butte des Morts, Foxes at, 
93, 97. 

Pewaukee, wind storm, 394. 

St. John, explored, 9. 

Superior, 29; boundary, 143, 272; 
Indians on, 50, 74, 90, 134, 193; 
portage system, 7, 8, 90, 91; 
Nicolet on, 10, 24, 25; Radis- 
son, 41-44, 85; Menard, 45, 46; 
AUouez, 46-48 ; Marquette, 47, 
49, 50; Jolliet, 52; Duluth, 74; 



450 



INDEX 



fur-trade, 119, 122, 124, 140, 
146, 147; posts, 76, 124; trade 
route, 78, 123, 128, 423 ; copper 
deposits, 11. 12, 52, 78, 86, 123, 
124,291,298,300; Schoolcraft's 
expedition, 242 ; proposed 
state, 286; railroad to, 302; 
fogged with smoke, 391. 
Tomahawk, post on, 195. 
Upper St. Croix, Duluth on, 74. 
Vieux Desert, portage, 46 ; bound- 
ary, 272. 
Waubesa (Second), named, 243. 
Winnebago, island, 173; Indians 

on, 194, 216; road, 251. 
Winnipeg, Winnebago from, 17; 
post on, 76; portage system, 8. 
Of the Woods, boundary, 143. 
Land, systems at Green Bay, 191 ; 
grants to canals, 377; to rail- 
roads, 302, 377, 379 ; to university, 
314-317; settled by soldiers, 377, 
378. 
Langlade, Augustin, career, 119, 

120; death, 133. 
Langlade, Charles Michel, in 
French and Indian War, 98, 99, 
105 ; in Revolution, 133-140 ; bio- 
graphy, 119-121. 
Langlade family, af Green Bay, 

163. 
Lansing, Abraham, fur-trader, 

107. 
La Perri^re, Pierre Paul. See 

Marin. 
La Perri^re, Rene Boucher de, 

French commandant, 95. 
Lapham, Increase A., scientist, 

257. 
La Pointe, origin of term, 47; 
Jesuit mission, 47, 49, 50, 52, 
255; fur-trade, 195; modern vil- 
lage, 42; agency, 231. See also 
Bays: Chequamegon. 
Lares (P. R.), captured by Wis- 
consin troops, 420. 
La Ronde, Louis Denis, sieur de, 

on Lake Superior, 123, 124. 
La Ronde, Philippe Denis de, on 

Lake Superior, 123. 
Larrabee, Charles H., member of 
Congress, 328. 



La Salle, Robert Cavelier, sieur 
de, on Kankakee portage, 7; on 
Mississippi, 60, 65-74,86; estab- 
lishes posts, 66-68, 72, 73, 127; 
fur-trade, 65; agents at Green 
Bay, 103 ; unsuccessful, 79. 

Lauson, Jean de, governor of New 
France, 37. 

Lawe, John, in War of 1812-15, 
173, 174. 

Lawe family, at Green Bay, 163. 

Lawrence University, founded, 
426. 

Lead, location of mines, 64, 78-80; 
in West, 155-158; in Northwest, 
199-204, 208; in Wisconsin, 137, 
138, 183, 184, 199, 294, 297; on 
Mississippi, 78-80; at Galena, 
64; worked by French, 86; 
Foxes in, 97, 98 ; mining, de- 
velops country, 421; extent 
of, 422; Wisconsin trade in, 
299, 371-373 ; Eastern shipments, 
297; cost of transportation, 298; 
railroads important to, 299, 
300. 

League, French, defined, 16. 

Lee, Gen. Fitzhugh, in Spanish- 
American War, 419. 

Lee, Isaac, adjudicates land- 
claims, 192, 193. 

Lee, Gen. Robert E., surrenders, 
345, 365, 367. 

Legardeur. See St. Pierre. 

Legler, Henry E., Moses of the 
Mormons, 269. 

Le Jeune, Paul, Jesuit missionary, 
22, 31, 32. 

Le Roy, Francis, at Portage, 167. 

Leslie, Lieut. William, in Pontiac 
uprising, 114 ; at Mackinac, 106, 
120. 

Leslie (Old Belmont), site of first 
capital, 240. 

Le Sueur, Pierre Charles, fur-trad- 
er, 122-124 ; explorations, 77-80, 
86 ; lead mines, 78-80, 156 ; forti- 
fies trade route, 91. 

Lewis, Gov. James T., announces 
close of war, 367. 

Lewis, Meriwether, exploration, 
95. 



INDEX 



451 



Lewis and Clark, exploring ex- 
pedition, 170. 

Libby, O. G-., Significance of lead 
and shot trade, 297. 

Libby Prison, escape from, 360. 

Libraries, in Wisconsin, 427, 428. 

Lignery, Marchand de, expedition 
against Foxes, 93, 96, 119. 

Lincoln, Abraham, in Black Hawk 
War, 223 ; president, 324 ; inau- 
guration, 331 ; calls for volun- 
teers, 322, 336, 337 ; war policy, 
353, 354. 

Lincoln County, swept by fire, 391. 

Linctot, Ensign Godefroy de, at 
Chequamegon, 123 ; aids Clark, 
135. 

Lipcap, , murdered, 209. 

Lisbon, road, 252. 

Little Chute, New York Indians 
at, 215. 

Little Crow, Sioux chief, 354. 

Little Kaukauna, early settle- 
ment, 102. 

Lodegand, Milwaukee chief, 136. 

London (Eng.), lords of trade pe- 
titioned, 88 ; Times, 356. 

London (Ont.), location, 143. 

Long, John, fur-trader, 139, 140, 
146. 

Long (Big) Knives, Indian term 
for Americans, 150. 

Long Prairie (Minn.), Winnebago 
removed to, 396. 

Louis XIV (France), claims West- 
ern country, 62, 86. 

Louis XVI (France), death, 217. 

Louis XVII (France). See Wil- 
liams, Eleazer. 

Louis Philippe (France), visits 
Eleazer Williams, 218. 

Louisiana, boundary, 87; French 
control, 72, 79, 86, 87, 89, 101, 371; 
Wisconsin a part of, 80; fur- 
trade, 95; lead-mining, 156; 
French governors, 92; Spanish 
control, 108,135, 136,159; retro- 
cessions, 169, 170; in War of Se- 
cession, 330, 366. 

Louisville (Ky.), La Salle at, 65. 

Louvigny, La Porte de, expedition 
against Foxes, 93, 94. 



Loyalists, in Revolution, 144. 

Ludington (Mich.), Marquette's 
death at, 59. 

Lumbering, in Wisconsin, 281-283, 
421 ; use of waterways, 379 ; for- 
est fires, 387-391. 

Lutherans, oppose Bennett Law, 
406,407; colleges, 426. 

Lyon, William P., supreme court 
justice, 410. 

McArthur, Arthur, acting gov- 
ernor, 310-312. 

McClellan, Gen. George B., 
praises Wisconsin troops, 348. 

McCook, Gen. Daniel, praises 
Wisconsin troops, 350. 

McDouall, Col. Robert, command- 
ant at Mackinac, 174, 180. 

Mack, Edwin S., Founding of 
Milwaukee, 165. 

McKay, , fur-trader, 107. 

McKay, Maj. William, in War of 
1812-15, 174-177. 

Mackinac, meaning of term, 108 
described, 185; native rendez 
vous, 31, 50, 140; Nicolet at, 25 
29; Radisson, 39; Jesuits, 50-54 
59, 69, 91; Duluth, 67, 69, 75; La 
hontan, 81; La Salle, 70, 71, 73, 
75; expeditions from, 62, 137 
139, 140,149; garrison, 133; com 
mandants, 119, 125, 134, 136, 137 
in Fox wars, 93, 95, 98 ; fort site 
107, 108; fur-trade, 130, 137, 146- 
148, 154, 372; entrepot, 105, 184 
195, 198; evacuated by French 
106, 120, 144; English at, 88, 107. 
116, 119, 121, 122, 154, 162, 168-170 
172; in Pontiac uprising, 113-116 
122 ; Langlade at, 105 ; in War of 
1812-15,173-177; American occu- 
pation, 160, 161, 180; as coun 
ty seat, 188, 192 ; court, 190 ; reg 
ister of vital statistics, 154, 155 
255. See also Islands : Mackinac 

Mackinaw City (Mich.), fort near 
108. 

Macon (Ga.), Confederate prison 
360. 

McPherson, Gen. James B., in At- 
lanta campaign, 364. 



452 



INDEX 



Madison, Indians at, 194, 225; be- 
comes capital, 241-243; roads to, 
251, 296; capitol, 244,245, 400, 401; 
early legislatures, 245, 259-261, 
273 ; schools, 253 ; constitutional 
conventions, 286,287; early edi- 
tors, 257, 258; newspapers, 254, 
306 ; railroads, 302 ; political ex- 
citement, 311 ; Republican state 
convention, 308; in war time, 
337, 346; state university, 424, 
426 (see also University of Wis- 
consin) ; State Historical So- 
ciety, 64, 329, 362; semi-centen- 
nial, 417, 418. 

Madison, James, town named for, 
243. 

Madison Guards, tender services, 
332, 333. 

Maine, Champlain in, 2; bound- 
ary, 143. 

Maiden (Ont.), British agent at, 
221. 

Mandan Indians, trade, 170. 

Manitowoc, trading-post, 165, 195. 

Manitowoc County, foreign 
groups, 293; Democratic seat, 
412 ; swept by fire, 389. 

Manufacturing, in Wisconsin, 
373, 376-378, 422. 

Marathon County, in Carver's 
claim, 128 ; swept by fire, 390. 

Marietta (Ohio), settled, 154. 

Marin, Sieur (Pierre Paul la Per- 
rifere), commandant at Green 
Bay, 96, 99; builds Sioux post, 
124. 

Marquette, Jacques, at Chequa- 
megon Bay, 47, 49, 50, 52; at 
Mackinac, 52-54, 107 ; Mississippi 
River expedition, 40, 52-57, 62, 
66, 68, 71, 77, 86; second jour- 
ney and death, 58, 59 ; narrative, 
57, 58, 155 ; value of discovery, 59- 
61. 

Marquette University, founded, 
427 ; Marquette's relics, 59. 

Marshfield, injured by fire, 389. 

Martin, Deborah Beaumont, aid 
acknowledged, viii; Historic 
Green Bay, viii, 169. 

Martin, Morgan L., territorial 



delegate, 286; contractor, 278; 
prominence, 257 ; Narrative, 203. 

Martin, Sarah Greene, Historic 
Green Bay, viii, 169. 

Maryland, border settlements, 
118; secession legislature, 343. 

Mascoutin Indians, at Milwaukee, 
92; on Fox River, 100. 

Mason, Stevens T., governor of 
Michigan, 238, 241. 

Mason, Vroman, Fugitive slave 
law, 325. 

Mason, destroyed by fire, 390. 

Mason and Dixon's line, 329. 

Massachusetts, cedes Northwest, 
151. 

Mathurin, Pierre, Sieur Millon, 
French officer, 98. 

Maxwell, Col James, pioneer, 259. 

Medford, injured by fire, 389, 390. 

Menard, Rene, Jesuit missionary, 
45, 46. 

Mendota, state insane hospital, 
428. 

Menominee Indians, 109; habitat, 
104, 194, 214; intertribal wars, 
204; Nicolet with, 27, 28; trust- 
worthy, 114-116; pillage Green 
Bay, 101; in Revolution, 134, 
137; War of 1812-15, 174; treaty, 
230, 231; council, 211; oppose 
Sauk, 226; cede lands, 215, 216,- 
agent, 164. 

Menomonie, sawmill, 282. 

Merrill, Menard near, 46. 

Mesaba, iron range, 395. 

Methode, , murdered by Win- 
nebago, 207, 213. 

Methodists, in Wisconsin, 255, 
426. 

Metropotamia, proposed state, 
152. 

Mexico, raids from, 341, 368. 

Meyer, B. H., History of Early 
railway legislation, 301. 

Miami Indians, in English inter- 
est, 119. 

Michigan, Foxes in, 90, 92, 93, 96; 
French settlements, 153; terri- 
tory embraces Wisconsin, 188, 
232-235, 250, 279 ; becomes a state, 
235, 237, 240; secretary, 237; 



INDEX 



453 



boundaries, 27, 143, 270-274; rail- 
road projects, 299; land grants, 
315; land claims, 192; code, 189; 
judge, 140; militia, 225; debts, 
290; Republican party organized, 
308; iron, 394; forest fires, 391. 

Michigan and Rock River Rail- 
road Co., 301. 

Michigania, proposed state, 152. 

Micbillimackinac County (Mich.), 
organized, 188. 

Miles, Gen. N. A., in Spanish- 
American War, 419. 

Miller, A. G., federal judge, 321. 

Miller, Col. John, builds Fort 
Howard, 180, 181. 

Milton College, established, 426. 

Milwaukee, Indian rendezvous, 
194; Saint-Cosme at, 92; trading 
post, 195; early history, 165; in 
Revolution, 135, 136, 138; War of 
1812-15, 173; desires capital, 241, 
242,400; roads, 250-252, 296, 319, 
320; settlers, 257, 264; land 
office, 231; schools, 253; canals, 
276; churches, 255; banking, 241, 
283-285, 338; first railroad, 300, 
301; early trade development, 
373-377, 379; entrepot, 245, 247, 
258, 297, 298; anti-slavery senti- 
ment, 320, 321 ; newspapers, 254, 
296, 297; foreigners, 294; in War 
of Secession, 333, 334, 338, 339, 
342, 346, 354, 418, 420; Democratic 
convention, 353; anti-Bennett 
agitation, 406-408; labor trou- 
bles, 401-403; wind storm, 394; 
aid for Rhinelander, 391 ; schools 
and colleges, 59, 424, 426, 427; in- 
stitutions, 428, 429 ; semi-centen- 
nial, 418 ; Advertiser, 254 ; Senti- 
nel, 296. 

Milwaukee and Mississippi Rail- 
road Co., 301. 
Milwaukee and Rock River Canal 

Co., 276, 277, 281. 
Milwaukee and Watertown Rail- 
road Co., bond issue, 380, 381. 
Milwaukee and Waukesha Rail- 
road Co., chartered, 301. 
Milwaukee County, unorganized, 
237; foreigners, 293. 



Mineral Point, settled, 234; 
schools, 253; desires capital, 
241: bank, 241, 283; land office, 
231 ; newspaper, 254; wind storm, 
293; importance, 239, 242. 

Miners' Free Press, 254. 

Minneapolis (Minn.), location, 69, 
127, 128, 275; aids cyclone vic- 
tims, 394. 

Minnesota, Indians, 204, 354, 396, 
398 ; French in, 64, 69, 95 ; Carver, 
127, 128; boundaiies, 275; iron 
mines, 395; railroad develop- 
ment, 379 ; forest fires, 391 ; aids 
cyclone victims, 394. 

Mirandeau, Jean, fur-trader, 165. 

Missions. See Catholics, Jesuits, 
and the several localities. 

Mississippi, in War of Secession, 
329, 333, 358. 

Mississippi Land Co., buys Carv- 
er's claim, 129. 

Missouri, lead mines, 155-158, 199- 
202, Indian cessions, 182 ; bound- 
ary, 233, 235; migration from, 
202, 248; governor, 172; in War 
of Secession, 365. 

Mitchell, Alexander, banker, 257, 
284, 285. 

Mobile (Ala.), captured by Span- 
ish, 137. 

Monks' Hall, described, 307. 

Montmagny, Charles Hualt de, 
governor of New France, 34. 

Montreal, discovered, 2; rapids, 
57; Lahontan at, 82; Marquette's 
map, 54; in Fox wars, 93, 97; 
fur-trade, 43, 45, 67, 107, 146, 
169,170, 371,372; military base, 
89, 116; fall of, 99, 105, 120, 121, 
146. 

Mooney, James, cited, 398. 

Moore, Col. M. T., in Spanish- 
American War, 418. 

Moran, Edmond, fur-trader, 116. 

Morgan, Lieut. Charles H., recap- 
tured, 360. 

Mormons, in Wisconsin, 264-266. 

Morong, , fur-trader, 136, 165. 

Morrill grant, to education, 425. 

Morris, Gouverneur, in London, 
158. 



454 



INDEX 



Morse, Dr. Jedidiah, in Wiscon- 
sin, 214, 255, 
Mouet, Didace, fur-trader, 119. 
Mound City (Ark.), Harvey at, 344. 
Mount Calvary, college, 427. 
Mountains : 
Appalachian, 305; passes, 117; as 
a boundary, 86, 88, 89, 113, 133, 
142; English explorations, 4, 
60. 
Black Hills, 127; silver in, 300. 
Canadian Rockies, drainage sys- 
tem, 8. 
Rocky, precious metals in, 300, 
394. 
Mukwonago, community at, 264. 
Munsee Indians, migrate to Wis- 
consin, 213, 216. 
Muscoda, Indian town, 126. 

Nashville (Tenn.), navy opera- 
tions, 364. 

Natchez (Miss.), captured by 
Spanish-, 136. 

Nattestad, Ole, Norwegian pio- 
neer, 293. 

Naundorff, , royal claimant, 

218. 

Nauvoo (111.), Mormons at, 264, 
265. 

Nebraska, Winnebago in, 398; 
slavery bill, 321. 

Nelson, Serg. William, bravery, 
350. 

Neville, Ella Hoes, Historic Green 
Bay, viii, 169. 

New Brunswick, Champlain in, 2 ; 
Recollects, 19. 

New England, pioneers, 1; Iro- 
quois in, 10; population, 86; mi- 
gration from, V, 203, 246, 247, 340, 
372. 

New England Indians. See Stock- 
bridge and Bi'othertown. 

New France. See French. 

New London, Jesuit mission near, 
48. 

New Madrid (Mo.), battle near, 
346 

New Mexico, slavery to be pro- 
hibited, 317, 318. 

New Orleans, route to Quebec, 87, 



89 ; trade centre, 131, 157, 295, 297- 
299 ; in Revolution, 137 ; com- 
mercial relations with Wiscon- 
sin, 371-374. 

New Richmond, wind storm, 393. 

New York, Iroquois in, 9; Nicolet, 
14 ; *boundary claims, 88 ; popu- 
lation, 86 ; posts, 144 ; market for 
West, 298; migration from, v, 
203,246,247,340; represented in 
lead mines, 372; Tribune, 262, 
334, 374. 

New York Indians. See Stock- 
bridge, Brothertown, Munsee, 
and Oneida. 

New York Land Co., acquires In- 
dian title, 215. 

Newfoundland, settled, 1 ; French 
claim, 15 ; Lahontan in, 83. 

Newspapers, early, 253, 254. 

Niagara, La Salle and Tonty at, 67; 
Duluth, 69; Carver, 125; route, 
130 ; fur-trade transfer, 144. 

Nicolet, Jean, training, 13-15,19; 
at Three Rivers, 21, 22; en route 
to Wisconsin, 22-28, 34, 35, 39, 40, 
51, 54 ; in Wisconsin, 27-32, 47, 
62, 85, 155, 212, 288, 371 ; returns 
home, 32, 33 ; daughter, 123. 

Nineteenth Indiana, in Iron Bri- 
gade, 348. 

Nineteenth Wisconsin Infantry, at 
Fair Oaks, 363. 

Ninth Wisconsin Infantry, Ger- 
mans in, 340 ; colonel, 357. 

Nipissing Indians, Nicolet with, 
15, 24. 

Noonan, Josiah A., journalist, 258. 

Normandy, Charles-Louis de Bour- 
bon, duke of, 218, 

Normandy, Nicolet from, 13. 

Normans, in Newfoundland, 1. 
See also French. 

Norrie iron mine, 394, 395. 

North Prairie, settlement, 263. 

North West Co., 131; organized, 
147; posts, 163, 165, 169; methods, 
182; agents, 167, 173; extent of 
operations, 170; rivalry, 168, 170. 

Northern Islander, 267. 

Northwest (Far), Wisconsin 
troops in, 368. 



INDEX 



455 



Northwest Passage, sought by 
navigators, 4, 17, 94, 95, 125. 

Northwest Territory (Old North- 
west), Indians of, 63, 64; Nicolet 
in, 24; fur-trade, 77-80, 130, 146, 
147; boundaries, 270-275; British 
control, 76, 111, 117; Eastern 
claims surrendered, 151 ; organ- 
ized, 152-155; population, vi, 
153; Indian troubles, 159, 160; 
division into states, 187, 188, 
315. 

Northwestern University, found- 
ed, 426. 

Norwegians, in Wisconsin, vi, 292, 
293, 340; in Wisconsin troops, 
340; frightened by Indians, 393. 

Nouvel, Henri, Jesuit missionary^ 
49. 

Nova Scotia, settled by French, 2; 
Recollects in, 19. 

Nullification sentiment, in Wis- 
consin, 274-276, 322-325, 327. 

Oceans : 

Arctic, trade route to, 8. 

Pacific, affluents, 128; boundary, 

147, 151, 152, 254; early sought, 

4, 10; trade route to, 8, 76; 

reached by Americans, 170. 

Oconto, wind storm, 393. 

Oconto County, swept by fire, 388, 

389, 391. 
Ohio, boundaries, 240, 270, 271 ; as 

a territory, 151 ; migration from, 

247. 
Old Abe, war eagle, 361. 
Old Northwest. See Northwest 

Territory. 
Omaha Indians, leagued with 

Foxes, 94; fur-trade, 170. 
Oneida County, swept by fire, 391. 
Oneida Indians, habitat, 213, 216; 

migrate to Wisconsin, 216; mis- 
sionary, 214, 217; agency, 231; 

cede land, 215. 
Ontario, boundary, 143. 
Ordinance, of 1784, 156; of 1787, 

151-153, 240, 270. 
Oregon, movement towards, 298. 
Oregon (Wis.), wind storm, 393. 
Orton, Harlow S., counsel for Bar- 



stow, 309; supreme court just- 
ice, 411. 

Oshkosh, trading-post, 195; in- 
jured by fire, 388, 389; labor 
troubles, 403, 404; desires capi- 
tal, 400; normal school, 424; in- 
sane hospital, 428. 

Oswegatchie (N. Y.), fort retained 
by British, 144. 

Oswego (N. Y.), fort retained by 
British, 144. 

Ottawa (Outawa) Indians, habitat, 
112; warlike, 222; intertribal 
wars, 204; Radisson with, 41-43; 
Menard, 45, 46; Lahontan, 82; 
mission to, 108 ; trade with Mon- 
treal, 67; driven from La Pointe, 
50; at Mackinac, 119; attacked 
by Foxes, 91 ; friendly to British, 
88, 114-116; in Revolution, 138; 
treaty with, 183, 184, 199, 220, 
230. 

Ouisconsin, French name for Wis- 
consin, 233. 

Owen, Robert, social reformer, 
263, 264. 

Ozaukee County, draft riots, 354. 

Pablo Beach (Fla.), camp at, 
419. 

Paducah (Ky.), Harvey at, 344. 

Paine, Byron, counsel for Booth, 
324; supreme court justice, 324, 
325. 

Paquette, Pierre, at Portage, 167. 

Parkman, Francis, Jesuits in 
North America, 21. 

Parkman Club, Papers, 219, 269. 

Patrons of Husbandry. See 
Grangers. 

Pawnee Indians, slaves, 109. 

Pearson, Philippe, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 54, 56. 

Peck, Eben, first settler of Madi- 
son, 244, 260. 

Peck, George W., elected gov- 
ernor, 409; calls extra session, 
412. 

Peck, Roseline, Madison pioneer, 
244. 

Peckatonica and Mississippi Rail- 
road Co., chartered, 301. 



456 



INDEX 



Pedrick, S. M., Wisconsin Pha- 
lanx, 263. 

Pemberton, Gen. John C, surren- 
ders, 357. 

Peninsula campaign, 347, 348. 

Pennesha(Pinnashon,Pinnisance), 
, at Portage, 126, 131, 166. 

Pennsylvania, Iroquois in, 9; por- 
tages, 6; migration from, 246; 
border settlements, 118; troops 
sent to, 334. 

Pensacola (Fla.), captured by 
Spanish, 137. 

Pensaukee, wind storm, 393. 

Peoria (111.), Indians near, 59; fort, 
176; settlement, 153. 

Pepin County, in Carver's claim, 
128. 

Perkins, Lieut. Joseph, builds 
fort, 172; besieged, 174-177. 

Perrot, Nicolas, characterized, 64 ; 
interpreter, 63; commandant of 
West, 63; fur-trader, 63-66; forts, 
64, 127; explores Mississippi, 86; 
proces verbal, 77; at De Pere, 
103 ; in Fox wars, 91 ; finds lead, 
156; ostensorium, 64. 

Perrysburg (Ohio), site, 159, 

Peru, desires capital, 241. 

Peshtigo, harbor, 143; fire at, 389. 

Phelan, Raymond V., Financial 
History of Wisconsin, 277. 

Pickawillany, in French and In- 
dian War, 99: defeat at, 119. 

Pierce County, in Carver's claim, 
128 ; foreign groups, 293. 

Pinnisance (Pinnashon). See Pen- 
nesha. 

Pio Nono College, founded, 427. 

Pittsburgh (Pa.), port, 295. 

Plaisance (N. F.), British attack, 
83. 

Platte Mounds, road via, 250. 

Platteville, desires capital, 241; 
schools, 253; normal school, 424. 

Point Detour (Mich,), bluffs, 54; 
Nicolet at, 26, 27. 

Point Ignace (Mich.), Jesuit mis- 
sion at, 53; fort, 108. 

Pointe au Fer (N. Y.), fort, 144. 

Poles, in Wisconsin, vi, 292, 293; 
in labor troubles, 402, 403. 



Polk, Pres. James K., appoint- 
ments, 285; admits Wisconsin, 
286, 287, 417. 

Polk County, in Carver's claim, 
128 ; swept by fire, 390 ; wind 
storm, 393, 394. 

Ponce (P. R.), captured, 419. 

Pond, Peter, trader, 146; at Prai- 
rie du Chien, 127; in Wisconsin, 
129-132, 166; Journal, 128. 

Pontiac, Ottawa chief, 112, 115, 
117, 121, 149; extent of con- 
spiracy, 113; at Mackinac, 114- 
116, 120; in Wisconsin, 111-116; 
influence on fur-trade, 118; im- 
portance, 133, 134. 

Pope, Gen. John, praises Wis- 
consin troops, 348. 

Population, of English colonies, 
12, 13; New France, 12, 13; 
Northwest Territory, vi, 153; 
Wisconsin in 1860, 326; in 1870, 
340; rapid growth, 339. 

Pork, Eastern shipments, 297. 

Porlier, Jacques, tutor, 186; jus- 
tice, 189; fur-trader, 195; at 
Portage, 167. 

Porlier family, at Green Bay, 163. 

Port Gibson (Miss.), Wisconsin 
troops at, 356. 

Port Hudson (La.), surrenders, 
357. 

Port Royal (N. S.), settled, 2 ; Jesu- 
its at, 18. 

Port Washington, draft riots, 354; 
wind storm, 394. 

Portage, location, 279; portage, 7; 
canal, 278; trading post, 195; 
fort, 213, 281 ; early history, 166, 
167; desires capital, 241 ; schools, 
253; railroads, 302. See also Ca- 
nals : Fox-Wisconsin, Portages • 
Fox-Wisconsin, and Rivers; 
Fox and Wisconsin. 

Portage County, foreign groups, 
293. 

Portages ■ Historical importance, 
4, 5 ; in Northwest, 50, 152. 
Bois Brul6-St. Croix, 74, 78, 124. 
Chicago, 56, 58, 59, 82, 92. 
Fox-Wisconsin, 31, 32, 56, 62, 69, 
75, 77, 81, 85, 89, 91, 126, 127, 



INDEX 



457 



131, 166, 167, 172-174, 211, 233, 
278. 
Keweenaw- Wisconsin, 46. 
Lake Superior-Mississippi, 90, 

122. 
Lake Michigan-Mississippi, 26. 
Lake Michigan-Illinois, 56, 90. 
Lower Lakes-Ohio, 90. 
Niagara, 67. 

St. Lawrence-Mississippi, 4-8. 
Sturgeon Bay-Lake Michigan, 
56. 

Porter, Admiral David D., praises 
Wisconsin officer, 362. 

Porto Rico, Wisconsin troops in, 
419, 420. 

Portuguese, in Newfoundland, 1. 

Post of the Western Sea, estab- 
lished by French, 76, 124. 

Postlethwaite, Samuel, in fur- 
trade, 115. 

Potawatomi Indians, habitat, 194; 
wigwams, 109; intertribal wars, 
204; desire war, 222, 224; Nicolet 
with, 27, 28; Radisson, 39; Saint- 
Cosme, 92; in Revolution, 135- 
141 ; in Tecumseh's uprising, 171 ; 
treaty with, 183, 184, 199, 220, 230; 
removal, 397. 

Potter, John F. (Bowie Knife), 
member of Congress, 328; con- 
troversy with Pryor, 329, 330. 

Potter, R. L. D., introduces Potter 
Law, 383. 

Potter Law, for railway regulation, 
383-385, 415. 

Prairie du Chien, location, 55, 56; 
mines near, 157, 201 ; routes, 185, 
257 ; early native mart, 12 ; in fur- 
trade, 195, 279, 372 ; traders, 193, 
194; forts, 64,182, 205, 281 ; Carver 
at, 126, 127 ; Pond describes, 131 ; 
early settlers, 135, 152; arriv- 
al of Americans, V, 164; Ameri- 
can garrison, 184, 223; treaties, 
157, 204,205, 230; Indian agency, 
200, 207; in Revolution, 137-140; 
War of 1812-15, 172-178; Winne- 
bago wars, 205-213; Black Hawk 
War, 226-228 ; land claims, 191- 
194, 232; county seat, 188; bank, 
283; courts, 242; railroads, 300, 



301, 373; schools, 253; freight 
tonnage, 375; prominent men, 
257-259; soldiers' hospital, 346. 

Prairie du Sac, mine near, 157 ; bat- 
tle near, 225. 

Presbyterians, Winnebago mis- 
sion, 215, 396; in Wisconsin, 255; 
colleges, 426. 

Price County, in Carver's claim, 
128; swept by fire, 389, 390. 

Primary election, 416. 

Prince Society, Champlain's 
Voyages, 11; Radisson' s Jour- 
nal, 39. 

Princeton, wind storm, 392. 

Proclamation of 1763, 117, 118. 

Prohibition, agitation for, 404, 405. 

Prophet's Town, Indian village, 
222. 

Pryor, Roger A., controversy 
with Potter, 328, 329. 

Puant Indians (AVinnebago), ori- 
gin of term, 18. 

Public improvements, in 1860,326. 

Public utilities, state regulation 
of, 387. 

Pullman, Capt. James, in War of 
1812-15, 173, 174. 

QuANTRELL, William C, guerrilla 
warfare, 366. 

Quebec, founded, 1-3, 5, 10; seat 
of French government, 63, 65; 
interest in exploration, 34; 
founds Three Rivers, 20-22; 
routes to, 87, 89; Champlain at, 
11; Nicolet, 29, 34; Radisson, 
37, 39, 41; La Salle, 72, 73; 
Jesuits, 49, 50, 52; fur-trade, 16, 
58, 371; siege, 119, 126; fall, 99, 
105; surrendered to English, 12, 
15, 19 ; province organized, 117. 

Quebec Act, 132, 189. 

Racine, roads, 25, 296; lake port, 
296, 298; desires capital, 241; 
Glover case, 319-321; military 
camp, 337; windstorm, 393. 

Racine County, settled, 264; for- 
eigners, 293,294. 

Radisson, Pierre Esprit, sieur de, 
explorations in Wisconsin, 37- 



458 



INDEX 



45, 47, 51, 54, 59, 60, 62, 63, 77, 85, 
155; journals, 38-40. 

Railroads, in early Wisconsin, 
299-304, 372-376, 378, 379; chart- 
ers granted, 300-304; compete 
with waterways, 430 ; farm mort- 
gages, 379-381 ; land grants, 302, 
377; revival of construction, 386; 
anti-pass agitation, 414-416; 
state regulation, 381-386. 

Raleigh (N. C), surrendered, 365. 

Randall, Alexander W., counsel 
for Bashford, 309; war gov- 
ernor, 326, 330-337; on import- 
ance of Mississippi, 375, 376; 
ability, 335, 343, 344. 

Randall, Henry S., Life of Jeffer- 
son, 152. 

Reaume, Charles, magistrate, 163, 
164, 189. 

Recollects, Franciscan mission- 
aries, 18, 19, 68. 

Red Banks, Nicolet at, 28-31. 

Red Bird, Winnebag6 chief, 207- 
213. 

Red Jacket, Seneca chief, 113, 

Referendum, in Wisconsin, 404. 

Renault, Philippe Fran9ois de, 
miner, 156. 

Republicans, birth of party, 308 ; 
support Bashford, 312; elect 
Lincoln, 329; in war time, 330, 
332; in Taylor's administration, 
383; Bennett Law agitation, 408, 
409; oppose gerrymander, 411- 
413. 

Revue Historique de la Question 
Louis XVJI, 218. 

Reynolds, Gov. John, in Black 
Hawk War, 221. 

Rhinelander, threatened by fire, 
391. 

Rice (wild), Indian food, 196. 

Richelieu, Cardinal, controls 
France, 15, 19. 

Richmond (Va.), prison, 360; cam- 
paign, 363, 365. 

Rigaud, Fran9oisde, leases Green 
Bay, 99, 100. 

Ripon, early settlement, 262; birth- 
place of Republican party, 308. 

Ripon College, founded, 426. 



River Falls, normal school, 424. 
Rivers : 

Allegheny, portages, 6, 

Arkansas, Marquette and JoUiet 
at, 55, 56. 

Assiniboin, portage, 8. 

Bad, trade route, 193. 

Bad Axe, in Winnebago War, 
209, 210; Black Hawk at, 226. 

Beaver, portage, 6. 

Black, falls, 194; as boundary, 
194; Indians on, 42, 45,46,207, 
396; copper, 124; road, 251; 
lumbering, 281. 

Blue, Le Sueur on, 79. 

Bois Brule, trade route, 8, 74, 
78, 91, 124, 193; Duluth on, 74. 

Calumet, portage, 56. 

Chicago, portage, 26, 56, 58, 59, 
82, 92. 

Chippewa, Indians on, 42, 43; 
Carver, 128; road, 251; lum- 
bering, 281, 282. 

Columbia, named, 128; trade 
route, 170; post, 170, 171; rail- 
road from Wisconsin, 300. 

Connecticut, boundary, 143. 

Cuyahoga, portage, 6. 

Des Plaines, portage, 7, 

Eau Plaine, Winnebago on, 397. 

Fever, mining on, 158. 

Flambeau, windstorm, 393. 

Fox (111.), boundary, 182. 

Fox (Wis.), mouth, 169; rapids, 
47, 102, 103; portages, 62, 75, 
77 (see also Portages: Fox- 
Wisconsin); tributary, 48; 
boundary, 231, 241, 251 ; named, 
90; Indians on, 17, 31, 32, 90-93, 
96,98,99,194, 214-216; Nicolet 
on, 27, 31-35; Radisson, 40, 41; 
Jesuits, 47, 48, 51 ; Marquette 
and Jolliet, 54-56; Duluth, 69; 
Lahontan. 81, 82; Carver, 126; 
trade route, 7, 26, 62, 89, 127, 
137, 294; French on, 85, 94 (see 
also French); British, 107-116 
(see also British) ; Fort How- 
ard, 181; in Winnebago War, 
217; road near, 250; in lead 
trade, 373; canal, 274, 278; im- 
provement,278,279, 373; treaty, 



INDEX 



459 



230; early settlers, 102, 103, 
120, 130, 163, l&i, 218. 

French, Champlain on, 9; Nico- 
let, 23, 24; trade route, 15, 
116. 

Hudson, discovered, 4. 

Illinois, mouth, 69; portages, 6, 
7, 68, 70, 71, 90; Indians, 71; 
boundary, 182 ; Marquette on, 
56, 58, 59; trade route, 71, 138, 
140, 296, 298; war on, 176; Fort 
St. Louis, 70. 

Iron, copper on, 124. 

James, headsprings of, 4. 

Kankakee, portage, 6, 7, 68, 70, 
71. 

Long, Lahontan's alleged voy- 
age, 82, 84. 

Mattawan, discovered, 9; Nico- 
let on, 23; trade route, 15. 

Maumee, portage, 6; fort, 159. 

Menominee, boundary, 272; In- 
dians on, 27, 28; post, 195. 

Milwaukee, trader on, 165, ca- 
nalized, 277, 373. 

Minnesota, tributaries, 79. 

Mississippi, 48; source, 143,242; 
islands, 78, 346; portage sys- 
tem, 5-9, 26, 91, 102, 172, 371; 
affluent, 82; floods, 430; lower 
reaches unhealthy, 71 ; import- 
ance to Wisconsin geography, 
371; boundary, 138, 143, 148, 
151, 154-158, 178, 183, 184, 186, 
190, 207, 227, 230, 232, 235, 243, 
250, 270, 275; Indians on, 9, 31, 
43, 77, 93, 194, 204, 207, 219, 220, 
396; early knowledge of, 10, 18, 
49-52; De Soto on, 59, 60; pos- 
sibly seen by Radisson, 40, 59, 
60; Marquette and JoUiet on, 
52-57, 59-61; other French 
explorers, 60, 63-66, 68, 71, 72, 
78, 79, 82, 85, 86, 89; import- 
ance to French, 89-91 ; French 
settlements, 108, 119 ; fur-trade, 
78-80, 130, 131, 170; trade route, 
89, 125, 149, 171, 201, 248; trans- 
portation, 297-299, 423; navi- 
gation, 159, 160, 184, 200, 203, 
208, 291, 295, 296; in Revolu- 
tion, 135, 137-139; Spanish 



claims, 142; war on, 172, 176, 
177,209, 210, 226; military im- 
portance, 373-376; canals to, 
275; railroad, 299, 301; influ- 
ence on Wisconsin trade, 371- 
376. 

Missouri, Indians on, 131, 204; 
early explorations, 95; Lewis 
and Clark, 170; boundary, 235. 

Mohawk, fur-trade on, 371. 

Montreal, trade route, 193; 
boundary, 272. 

Muskingum, portage, 6. 

Oconto, post on, 195. 

Ohio, portages, 6; Iroquois on, 
10; La Salle on, 65; Marin, 99; 
trade route, 6, 75; English on, 
88, 111; boundary, 117, 134, 146, 
148, 150, 151, 159, 270; settle- 
ments, 153; migration route, 
246, 248; posts, 295. 

Ontonagon, trade route, 193; 
copper on, 134. 

Oregon. See Columbia. 

Ottawa, ditticulties of naviga- 
tion, 34, 35; Indians on, 13, 14; 
French explorers, 9, 22, 23, 39, 
45, 57, 82, 85; trade route, 15, 
116, 371. 

Peckatonica, battle, 224. 

Pensaukee, sawmill, 281. 

Peshtigo, post on, 195. 

Pigeon, portage, 8 ; posts, 76, 146. 

Plum, fort on, 224. 

Potomac, headsprings of, 4. 

Red, naval expedition, 361-363. 

Red Cedar, falls, 194; lumber- 
ing, 281. 

Rio Grande, boundary, 368 ; pa- 
trolled, 341. 

Roanoke, headsprings of, 4. 

Rock, Indians on, 98, 194, 219, 
222-225, 228; French, 105, 106; 
boundary, 220, 230; proposed 
canals, 274, 276, 373 ; transpor- 
tation, 296. 

Root, railroad to, 301. 

St. Croix, Mississippi tributary, 
78; source, 74; falls, 194; Bois 
Brule portage, 74, 78, 124; In- 
dians on, 42; Carver, 128; 
trade route, 8, 91, 124; rail- 



460 



INDEX 



roads, 302; lumbering, 281; 
boundary, 275, 355. 

St. Josephs, portage, 6, 7; trade 
route, 26; French occupation, 
68, 70. 

St. Lawrence, drainage system, 
5-8; portages, 4-8 ; Indians on, 
13, 90, 95, 101 ; French on, 2, 20, 
21, 78; fur-trade, 10, 36, 37, 41, 
43, 45, 58, 66, 75 ; English with- 
drawal, 82; lands, 191; bound- 
ary, 143. 

St. Louis, trade route, 8. 

St. Mary's, boundary, 234, 270, 
271; Nicoleton,24,25; fort, 180. 

St. Maurice, French outpost on, 
20. 

St. Peter's, Pond on, 131. 

Saguenay, explored, 9; Recol- 
lects on, 19. 

Saskatchewan, portage, 8 ; 
French posts on, 76, 124; fur- 
trade, 146, 170. 

Scioto, portage, 6. 

Tennessee, Harvey drowned in, 
344. 

Trinity, La Salle on, 73. 

Turkey, capture of keel-boat, 
137. 

Wabash, portage, 6; French 
settlements, 108; forts, 134; 
boundary, 138. 

White, colony, 265. 

White Earth, boundary, 233, 235. 

Wisconsin, source, 272; mouth, 
79, 127; portages, 62, 75, 77, 81, 
85,89; dalles, 227; watershed, 
296; Indians on, 17, 91, 98, 99, 
194, 211, 396; Marquette and 
Jolliet, 55,56; Menard, 46; Du- 
luth, 69, 75, 76; Lahontan, 81; 
trade route, 7, 26, 62, 75, 76, 
294; mining, 157,184,373; lum- 
bering, 281; road, 251; battle 
on, 225-227 ; improvement, 278, 
279, 373; boundary, 87, 182, 230, 
231, 234, 241, 251. 

Wolf, Jesuit mission on, 48 ; 
post, 195; land cession, 230; 
lumbering, 281. 

Yellow, hunting on, 207; Winne- 
bago mission, 396. 



Roads, in Wisconsin, 250-252, 297; 

Wilderness, 246. 
Robertson, Samuel, voyage on 

Lake Michigan, 135, 136, 165. 
Rock County, legislative member, 

259; circuit court, 410. 
Rock Island (111.), rapids at, 175; 

fort, 176; treaty, 230. 
Rock River Valley Union Railroad 

Co., corrupt legislature, 307. 
Rockford (111.), location, 271. 
Rogers, Maj. Robert, chief of 

rangers, 106, 119, 125. 
Rolette, Joseph, fur-trader, 195; 

at Portage, 167; in War of 1812- 

15, 172, 174, 177, 182. 
Root River Railroad Co., pro- 
posed, 301. 
Rose, Col. Thomas E., escapes 

from prison, 360. 
Roseboom, Garrit, fur-trader, 107, 

116. 
Ross, Alexander, Oregon, 171. 
Rountree, John H., pioneer, 258. 
Rousseau, Gen. L. H., praises 

Wisconsin troops, 350, 351, 357. 
Royal American Foot, how raised, 

106. 
Royal India Company, in Illinois, 

156. 
Rupert's Land, English name for 

Northwest, 76. 
Rush City (Minn.), in Indian 

scare, 398. 
Rusk, Jeremiah, governor, 403. 
Russians, in Wisconsin, 294. 
Ryan, Edward G., counsel for 

Bashford, 309 ; prosecutes Hub- 
bell, 314; political address, 353; 

railway decision, 384. 

Ste. Clara's Academy, founded, 

426. 
Saint-Cosme, Jean Franfois, Sul- 

pician missionary, 91. 
St. Francis Seminary, founded, 

426, 427. 
St. Francis Xavier, Marquette at, 

54,56-58; mission, 254. 
St. Genevieve (Mo.), market, 157. 
St. Ignace mission, Marquette at, 

53, 54, 59. 



INDEX 



461 



St. James, Jesuit mission, 48. 

St. James, Mormon colony, 266- 
268. 

St. John's (N. F.), supply port for 
explorers, 1. 

St. Josephs (Ind.), French settle- 
ment, 108 ; surrendered to Brit- 
ish, 106; lake port, 247. 

St. Lawrence College, founded, 
427. 

St. Louis (Mo.), entrepot, 208-210, 
295; Indian council, 182, 183; in 
Revolution, 135, 137-140; Ameri- 
can headquarters, 172, 176-178, 
181 ; lead market, 157 ; trade with 
Wisconsin, 372; trade develop- 
ment, 379 ; loss of trade, 298, 299 ; 
bank-notes, 285 ; merchants, 200; 
Forsyth at, 201 ; Garland, 319. 

Saint - Lusson, Simon Franfois 
Daumont, explores Mississippi, 
86 ; proems verbal, 62, 63. 

St. Mark, Jesuit mission, 48. 

St. Mary's College, Marquette's 
map at, 54. 

St. Paul (Minn.), location, 128, 
275; Carver's claim, 129; Win- 
nebago in, 391; fort near, 206; 
aids cyclone sufferers, 394. 

St. Pierre (St. Pier), , Wiscon- 
sin trader, 136. 

St. Pierre, Jean Baptiste Legar- 
deur de, in West, 125. 

St. Pierre, Paul Legardeur de, in 
Wisconsin, 123. 

St. Regis Indians, Williams 
among, 218. 

Salisbury, Confederate prison, 360. 

Salomon, Lieut.-Gov. Edward, 
succeeds Harvey, 346, 352, 354, 
367; on importance of Missis- 
sippi, 376. 

Salomon, Col. Frederick, at 
Helena, 357. 

San Antonio (Tex.), military stores 
at, 331. 

San Juan (P. R.), raided, 417. 

Sanborn, John B., Impeachment 
of Levi Hubbell, 314. 

Sanitary Commission, 344, 345, 347. 

Saratoga, proposed state, 152. 

Sauk County, foreign groups, 294. 



Sauk Harbor, road, 251. 

Sauk Indians, habitat, 109, 114, 
194; village, 126,219; trail, 221; 
intertribal wars, 204; allies of 
Foxes, 97-100, 106; grant lead 
mines, 157, 158, 199-201; work 
lead mines, 200, 203, 204; in Re- 
volution, 135, 137, 138; Tecum- 
seh's uprising, 113,171; Black 
Hawk War, 219-229; treaties, 
182-184,230; agent, 164. 

Sauk Prairie, Indian town, 126. 

Sault Ste. Marie, Nicolet at, 24, 25, 
29; Jesuits, 10, 24, 25, 45, 51; 
Radisson, 41; Lahontan, 81; 
Saint-Lusson, 62, 63; settlement, 
153; fur-trade, 146. 

Saunders, Admiral Sir Charles, at 
Quebec, 105. 

Savannah (Ga.), Harvey at, 344; 
siege, 364. 

Sawyer County, swept by fire, 391, 

Scandinavians, oppose Bennett 
Law, 406, 408 ; in Wisconsin re- 
giment, 340. 

Schenectady (N. Y.), trade route, 
130. 

Schofield, Gen. John M., near 
Nashville, 364. 

Schoolcraft, Henry R., visits Wis- 
consin, 242. 

Schools. See Education. 

Scotch, in Wisconsin, 294; in fur- 
trade, 146. 

Scribner, Gen. Benjamin F., 
praises Wisconsin troops, 351. 

Scull, Gideon D., edits Radisson' s 
Journal, 39. 

Seaman, Col. H. M., in Spanish- 
American War, 418. 

Second Wisconsin Cavalry, serv 
ices, 351, 356, 366. 

Second Wisconsin Infantry, 
formed, 336; in Iron Brigade, 
348, 358; at Bull Run, 342; at 
Gettysburg, 358 ; losses, 343, 348, 
358 ; in Spanish-American War, 
418. 

Seventh Day Baptists, college, 
426. 

Seventh Wisconsin Infantry, 
formed, 340; in Iron Brigade, 



462 



INDEX 



348; at Gettysburg, 358; at 
Hatcher's Run, 363; losses, 343. 

Seventeenth Wisconsin infantry, 
Irish in, 340; at Corinth, 349; 
at Vicksburg, 356. 

Shade], Col. S. P., in Spanish- 
American War, 418. 

Sharpshooters (Berdan's), in War 
of Secession, 340; at Gettysburg, 
358. 

Shawano County, swept by fire, 
389. 

Shea, John Gilmary, Discot>ery of 
the Mississippi, 21. 

Sheboygan, Saint-Cosme at, 92; 
post, 165,195; roads, 251; schools, 
253; men in Porto Rico, 420. 

Sheboygan County, wind storm, 
392. 

Shelby, Evan, fur-trader, 115. 

Shenandoah Valley, campaign, 342, 
348. 

Sheridan, Gen. Philip, praises 
Wisconsin troops, 351. 

Sherman, Gen. AVilliam T., Wis- 
consin troops with, 359; in At- 
lanta campaign, 363, 364, 366 ; 
march to the sea, 364, 365 ; praises 
Wisconsin troops, 342; Memoir, 
341. 

Shields, Cummin, fur-trader, 107. 

Shreveport (La.), operations, 361. 

Silvy, Antoine, Jesuit mission- 
ary, 49. 

Sinapee, road, 251. 

Sinclair, Col. Patrick, at Mack- 
inac, 136, 137. 

Sinsinawa Mound Academy, 426. 

Sioux Indians, habitat, 100, 193, 
194, 226 ; poverty, 69 ; population, 
109; hostile, 207, 208,210; inter- 
tribal relations, 18, 47, 50, 90, 94, 
124,204, 205, 227; relations with 
French, 43, 64, 69, 74, 75, 77, 79, 
90, 115, 124; find lead, 153; Carver 
with, 127, 128; Pond, 131; fur- 
trade, 18, 95, 107, 119; in Revo- 
lution, 134, 137, 139; War of 
1812-15, 174 ; outbreak of 1862, 354. 

Sitting Bull, Sioux chief, 113. 

Sixteenth Pennsylvania Infantry, 
in Spanish-American War, 419. 



Sixteenth Wisconsin Infantry, at 
Shiloh, 347; Corinth, 349; At- 
lanta campaign, 364. 

Sixth Maine Infantry, at Marye's 
Hill, 355, 356; Warrenton, 359, 
360. 

Sixth Wisconsin Battery, at Cor- 
inth, 350. 

Sixth Wisconsin Infantry, in Iron 
Brigade, 348; at Antietam, 349; 
at Gettysburg, 358, 359; officer, 
360; losses, 343. 

Slavery, attitude of state towards, 
317-325, 327; fugitive slave law, 
318, 323, 324. 

Sloan, A. Scott, member of Con- 
gress, 328. 

Sloan, Ithamar C, member of 
Congress, 328. 

Smith, A. D., supreme court jus- 
tice, 309, 322, 323. 

Smith, Joseph, Mormon elder, 264, 
265. 

Smith, Gen, Thomas A., builds 
Fort Crawford, 182. 

Smith, W. R., History of Wiscon- 
sin, 277. 

Smithfield (N. C), army near, 365. 

Snelling, Col. Josiah, at Prairie 
du Chien, 206. 

Socialists, in Milwaukee, 402. See 
also Communism. 

Soley, J. R., naval historian, 366, 
367. 

South Bend (Ind.), portage, 6, 7; 
settlement, 153. 

South Carolina, secession ordi- 
nance, 329. 

South Kaukauna, mission near, 
255. 

South Sea, term explained, 50; 
boundary, 63, 88. 

South West Company, organized, 
169, 170. 

Southerners, early trade with Wis- 
consin, 371-376. 

Southport. See Kenosha. 

Spanish, explorations by, 3, 4; on 
lower Mississippi, 55, 72, 74; se- 
cure Louisiana, 108; in Upper 
Louisiana, 135-140; territorial 
claims, 142; intrigues, 125, 148 



INDEX 



463 



149, 158, 159 ; treaty, 160; embargo 
at New Orleans, 374; miners, 
157, 199. 

Spanish-American "War, Wiscon- 
sin's part in, 418-420. 

Sparks, Jared, Life of Washing- 
ton, 151. 

Sparta, school for dependent 
children, 429. 

Spring Lake, settlement, 263. 

Spring Prairie. See Voree. 

Springfield (111.), proclamation, 
222, 223. 

Squirrel, clan totem, 109. 

Starkweather, Col. John C, Wis- 
consin office!', 334. 

Starved Rock (111.), Fort St. Louis 
at, 70; La Salle's party. 73. 

Statesburg, mission, 255. 

Steamboats, decline of Missis- 
sippi traffic, 374, 376; on Great 
Lakes, 377. 

Steuben, Baron Frederick von, 
commissioner, 144. 

Stevens Point, Winnebago at, 
194; normal school, 424. 

Stillwater (Minn.), aids cyclone 
sufferers, 394. 

Stockbridge Indians, emigrate to 
Wisconsin, 211, 213-217, 231; mis- 
sion, 255 ; as farmers, 395. 

Stone, Gen. Roy, in Porto Rico, 
419. 

Straits, Hudson, discovered, 4; 
Mackinac, 153, 190, 234. 

Strang, James Jesse, Mormon 
leader, 264-269. 

Strong, Moses M., lawyer, 258. 

Suite, Benjamin, Melanges dliis- 
toire et de litter ature, 21. 

Sumner, Charles, on Glover case, 
323; cxingratulates Paine, 325. 

Superior, normal school, 424. 

Superior Air Line Railroad Co., 
strike, 403. 

Swedes, in Wisconsin, 293; fright- 
ened by Indians, 398. 

Swiss, in Wisconsin, vi, 292, 293. 

Sylvania, proposed state, 152. 

Tallmadge, Nathaniel P., terri- 
torial governor, 285. 



Taxation, in Wisconsin territoiy, 
279-281; in War of Secession, 
369,370; Wisconsin commission, 
387, 430. 

Taychoperah. See Four Lakes. 

Taylor, Gov. William, R., railway 
regulation under, 383. 

Taylor, Zachary, in Black Hawk 
War, 223. 

Taylor County, in Carver's claim, 
128; swept by fire, 390, 391. 

Taylors Falls (Minn.), in Indian 
scare, 398. 

Tecumseh, Shawnee chief, 113, 171, 
220. 

Tennessee, settlement, 159 ; migra- 
tion from, 202 ; in War of Seces- 
sion, 366. 

Tenney, H. A., journalist, 258. 

Tenth Wisconsin Infantry, at 
Chaplin Hills, 350; at Stone's 
River, 351 ; at Chickamauga, 359. 

Texas, in War of Secession, 330, 
331, 366. 

Third Wisconsin Battery, at 
Stone's River, 351. 

Third Wisconsin Cavalry, at Prai- 
rie Grove, 351 ; services, 366. 

Third Wisconsin Infantry, organ- 
ized, 336; Indians in, 340; in 
Maryland,[343; Shenandoah Val- 
ley, 348; at Antietam,349; Chan- 
cellorsville, 355; Gettysburg, 
358 ; in Spanish-American War, 
418-420. 

Thirty-seventh Wisconsin Infan- 
try, Indians in, 340; at Peters- 
burg, 363. 

Thirty-sixth Wisconsin Infantry, 
in Richmond campaign, 363; 
losses, 343. 

Thirty-third Wisconsin Infantry, 
on Red River expedition, 361; 
at Nashville, 364. 

Thomas, Gen. George H., sobri- 
quet, 359; at Nashville, 364. 

Three Rivers (Que.), founded, 20- 
22; Nicoletat, 21-23. 

Thwaites, Reuben G., Jesuit RelOr 
tions, 14, 15, 20, 22, 26-28, 30-33, 
37-41, 50, 51, 54, 57, 58, 62; Early 
Western Travels, 171; Early 



464 



INDEX 



Lead Mining, 158; University 
of Wisconsin, 317. 

Tobacco, raised in Wisconsin, 378. 

Tonty, Henri de, character, 66, 67; 
Lahontan with, 81; with La 
Salle, 66-74. 

Toronto (Ont.), location, 143. 

Transportation, methods, 203, 245, 
249-252; routes, 246-248, 294-297, 
423. See also Fur-trade. 

Treasurers, refund interest, 413, 
414. 

Treaties : Nicolet with Winnebago 
(1634), 31, 32; San Ildefonso 
(1762), 108 ; Paris (1763), 111,117; 
Paris (1782-83), 142-145, 151 ; Fort 
Harmar (1789), 159; Jay's (1794), 
159-164, 181; Greenville (1795), 
159, 160 ; Madrid (1795), 160 ; Sauk 
and Fox (1804), 199, 201, 220; 
Ghent (1814), 177; Sauk and Fox 
(1816), 199, 220, 230; Menominee 
(1821), 215; Winnebago (1821), 
215; Prairie du Chien (1825)204, 
205; Prairie du Chien (1829), 230; 
Menominee (1832), 230; Winne- 
bago (1832), 230; Chicago (1833), 
230; Menominee (1856), 231. 

Trempealeau, Indian site, 207; 
Perrot's fort, 63. 

Trempealeau County, in Carver's 
claim, 128. 

Troy (N. Y.), emigration point, 
247. 

Turner, Frederick J., Fur-Trade 
in Wisconsin, 147; Indian 
Trade in Wisconsin, 198. 

Twelfth Wisconsin Battery, at 
Corinth, 350. 

Twelfth Wisconsin Infantry, 
French in, 340; in Atlanta cam- 
paign, 364. 

Twentieth Wisconsin Infantry, at 
Prairie Grove, 350; losses, 351. 

Twenty-eighth Wisconsin Infan- 
try, at Helena, 357. 

Twenty-first Wisconsin Infantry 
at Paint Rock, 350; at Stone's 
River, 351 ; at Chickamauga, 359 ; 
officers, 360. 

Twenty-fourth Michigan Infan- 
try, in Iron Brigade, 348. 



Twenty-fourth Wisconsin Infan- 
try, at Stone's River, 351; at 
Chickamauga, 359 ; at Nashville, 
364. 

Twenty-ninth Wisconsin Infantry, 
at Vicksbui-g, 356; on Red River 
expedition, 361, 362. 

Twenty-second Wisconsin Infan- 
try, at Atlanta, 364. 

Twenty-sixth Wisconsin Infantry, 
Germans in, 340; at Gettysburg, 
358; Mission Ridge, 359; in Lou- 
isiana, 360; losses, 343 

Twenty-third Wisconsin Infantry, 
at Vicksburg, 356, 357; on Red 
River expedition, 361, 362. 

Twiggs, Maj.-Gen. David E., in 
Wisconsin, 331 ; surrenders 

" stores to Confederacy, 330, 331. 

Two Rivers, trading-post, 136, 195. 

Tyler, Pres. John, appointments, 
261, 285. 

United States, Old Congress, 151, 
152, 158; Louisiana purchase, 169, 
170 ; in War of Secession, 334, 345, 
349. See also Treaties. 

University of Wisconsin, location, 
401; early history, 253, 314-317, 
424-426; land grants, 314-317; 
first graduates, 316; athletic 
field, 337; reputation, 258; Bui' 
letin, 277. 

Vaudreuil, Philippe de Rigault, 
marquis de. governor of New 
France, 77, 92, 99, 105. 

Verendrye family, explorers, 124. 

Vernon County, foreign groups, 
294; wind storm, 392. 

Verville. See Gautier. 

Vicksburg (Miss.), campaign of, 
357, 376. 

Vieau, Andrew, Narrative, 165. 

Vieau, Jacques, Milwaukee trad- 
er, 165, 166. 

Vilas, William F., legacy, 425; 
View of Vicksburg Campaign, 
356. 

Villemonde, Louis de Beaujeu de, 
commands Mackinac, 105-107, 
120; quarrel with La Salle, 72, 73. 



INDEX 



465 



Villiers, Nicolas Coulon, sieur de, 
commands Green Bay, 97. 

Vincennes (Ind.), settlement, 153; 
French post, 113; in Revolution, 
138. 

Vineyard, James R., kills Ai'ndt. 
261. 

Virginia, settlement, 1; Indian 
uprising, 113; reaching west- 
ward, 4. 118, 246; fortifies 
passes, 88; cedes Northwest, 151 ; 
Virginia and Kentucky resolu- 
tions, 324. 

Viroqua, wrecked by wind, 392. 

Visscher, Teunis, fur-trader, 107, 
116. 

Voree, Mormon colony, 265, 266, 
268; Herald, 2^. 

Voyageurs, characteristics, v; 
wide travelers, 104, 109. See 
also French, Fur-trade, and 
Habitans. 

Wabashaw, Sioux chief, 134. 

"Wales, tuberculosis sanitorium, 
429. 

Walk-in-the-Water, steamboat, 
215. 

Walker, George H., pioneer, 257. 

Walker, Isaac P., slavery attitude, 
318. 

Walworth County, member from, 
259. 

Warren, Gen. G. K., in Richmond 
campaign, 363. 

Warren, Lyman INI., fur-trader, 
168. 

Warren., Truman A., fur-trader. 
168. 

Warrior, steamboat, 227. 

Wars: Fox, 84-101; King Wil- 
liam's (1689-97), 78, 86; French 
and Indian (1754-63), 125, 130, 
167; Revolution (1775-82), 133- 
141; 1812-15, 171-179, 214; Black 
Hawk's (1832), 183, 219-229; Se- 
cession (1861-65), 326-370; Span- 
ish-American (1898), 418-420. 

Washburn, Cadwallader C, mem- 
ber of Congress, 328 ; governor, 
382. 

Washburn, post near, 122. 



Washington, George, peace ar- 
rangements, 144. 

Washington, proposed state, 152. 

Washington (D. C), in War of Se- 
cession, 333, 335, 336. 

Washington County, (iraft riots, 
354. 

Watertown, experience with rail- 
road bonds, 380, 381; college, 
426. 

Watertown and Madison Railroad 
Co., aided by Watertown, 380, 
3S1. 

Waukegan (111.), location, 271. 

W^aukesha, college at, 426; indus- 
trial school, 428. 

Wavikesha Beach, wind storm, 
394. 

W^aukesha County, community, 
263; naval hero, 366. 

Waupaca, veterans' home, 429. 

Waupun, state prison, 429; wind 
storm, 392. 

Wausau, Indians near, 396. 

Waushara County, foreign 
groups, 293; Indians, 396. 

Wekau, Winnebago brave, 208-213. 

Welsh, in Wisconsin, 294. 

West Bend, draft riots, 354. 

West Florida, province organized, 
117. 

West Superior, labor troubles,403. 

Western Sea, term explained, 50. 

Wheat, transportation of, 299. 

Whigs, in Wisconsin, 308. 

Whistler, IMaj. William, in Win- 
nebago War, 210-212. 

White, Philo, journalist, 257. 

White Cloud, Winnebago pro- 
phet, 222. 

Wliitehall (N. Y.), emigration 
point, 246. 

Whitewater, normal school, 424. 

Whitney, Asa, railroad project, 
300. 

Whiton, Edward V., supreme 
court justice, 309, 323. 

Wight, William Ward, aid ac- 
knowledged, viii; Eleazer JVil- 
Uams, 219. 
Wilderness Road, migration 
route, 246. 



466 



INDEX 



Wilkinson, Gen. James, intrigues, 
158, 159. 

Williams, Eleazer, claims to be 
French dauphin, viii, 214-217. 

Wilmot proviso, 318. 

Wilson, Gen. James H., raid, 366. 

Winnebago, insane hospital, 428. 

Winnebago County, foreign 
groups, 293, 294; Bashford from, 
308. 

Winnebago Indians, origin, 16-18, 
29; habitat, 100, 104, 126, 130, 131, 
194,214; wigwams, 109; miners, 
203, 204, 213; intertribal wars, 
204; visited by early French, 22, 
24-34, 38; Gorrell with, 114; in 
Revolution, 135, 137; Tecumseh's 
uprising, 171; War of 1812-15, 
173, 174; Winnebago War, 205- 
213; Black Hawk War, 222, 224, 
226-228 ; disturbance of 1836, 239 ; 
cede lands, 215; council, 211, 216; 
treaty, 230; chief, 166; agent, 164; 
attempted removal, 394-398. 

Wisconsin, discovered, 4, 16-33; 
origin of name, 232, 233; French 
regime, 34-101; British regime, 
102-178 ; Americans take posses- 
sion, 179-198; in Indiana Terri- 
tory, 163, 187; Illinois Territory, 
188 ; Michigan Territory, 188-190 ; 
first counties, 188; territory es- 
tablished, 229-245, 271, 280; capi- 
tal selected, 241-243 ; boundaries, 
143, 152, 270-275 ; Indian cessions, 
182-184, 230, 231,241; Indian pop- 
ulation, 109, 231, 233; state ad- 
mitted, 275, 285-287, 291, 417; 
area, 421; climate, 290; popula- 
tion, 253, 285, 288; improve- 
ments, 276-279; taxes, 279-281; 
as a summer resort, 422, 423; 
commissions, 428-431. See also 
Fur-trade, Immigration, Indi- 
ans, Lead, Lumbering, Wars, 
and individual topics. 



Wisconsin Academy of Sciences 
Arts, and Letters, 428. 

Wisconsin and Superior Railroad 
Co., land grant scandal, 302. 

Wisconsin City, desires capital, 
241. 

IVisconsin Democrat, 306. 

Wisconsin Enquirer, 254. 

Wisconsin Free Democrat, 320. 

Wisconsin Historical Society, 
work, 417, 430; library, 164, 427; 
museum, 64, 329, 362; publica- 
tions, vii ; Collections, 43, 63, 100, 
103, 104, 107, 129, 130, 137, 139, 141, 
152, 155, 158, 165, 166, 185, 203, 297, 
301 ; Proceedings, 98, 147, 165, 240, 
263, 277, 314, 325, 339. 

Wisconsin History Commission, 
431; publications, 356, 359, 360. 

Wisconsin Library Commission, 
427, 428. 

Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insur- 
ance Co., 284, 285. 

Wisconsin Phalanx, history, 262, 
263. 

Wisconsin Soldiers' Aid Society, 
345. 

Wisconsin State Agricultural 
Society, 337. 

Wisconsin State Journal, 312. 

Wittenberg, Indian school, 231. 

Wolcott, Gen. E. B., services, 347. 

Wolfe, Gen. James, at Quebec, 
105. 

Wood, Abraham, explorations, 60. 

Wood County, swept by fire, 389, 
390. 

Wool, raised in Wisconsin, 378. 

Wyman, W. W., journalist, 258. 

Yauco (P. R.), captured, 420. 
Yellow Banks, Black Hawk at, 222. 
Young, Brigham, Mormon leader, 
265. 

Zinc, in Wisconsin, 300. 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



AMERICAN STATESMEN 

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JOHN RANDOLPH. By Henry Adams. 

ANDREW JACKSON. By W. G. Sumner. 

MARTIN VAN BUREN. By Edward W. Shepard. 

HENRY CLAY. By Carl Schurz. 2 volumes. 

DANIEL WEBSTER. By Henry Cabot Lodge. 

JOHN C CALHOUN. By Dr. H. Von Holst. 

THOMAS H. BENTON. By Theodore Roosevelt. 

LEWIS CASS. By Andrew C. McLaughlin. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By John T. Morse, Jr. 2 volumes. 

WILLIAM H. SEWARD. Bv Thornton K. Lothrop. 

SALMON P. CHASE. By Albert Bushnell Hart. 

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. By C. F. Adams, Jr. 

CHARLES SUMNER. By Moorfield Storey. 

THADDEUS STEVENS. By Samuel W. McCall. 

SECOND SERIES 

Biographies of men particularly influential m the recent Political History of the 
Nation. Each volume, with Portrait, i2mo, ^1.25 net ; postage 12 cents. 
This second series is intended to suppletnent the original list of A merit an 
Statesmen by the additioft of the names of men who have helped to make the his- 
tory of the United States since the Civil War. 

JAMES G, BLAINE. By Edward Stanwood. 
JOHN SHERMAN. By Theodore E. Burton. 
WILLIAM McKINLEY. By T. C. Dawson. 

ULYSSES S. GRANT. By Samuel W. McCall. In preparation 
Other interesting additions to the list to be made i?i the future. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



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